An enormous police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left no less than 119 folks lifeless drew protests for extreme pressure Wednesday and requires the Rio’s governor to resign.
Households of the lifeless decried what they described as executions by police, whereas the state authorities hailed a profitable operation in opposition to a robust prison group that has taken over massive swaths of town.
Dozens of favelas residents gathered in entrance of the state’s authorities headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with pink paint, a day after Rio’s deadliest raid and hours after households and residents laid dozens of lifeless our bodies on a avenue in one of many focused communities to point out the magnitude of the operation.
BBC Information verified a number of movies exhibiting dozens of our bodies specified by a row in a market space of Rio, in its northern Penha district.
Questions rapidly arose concerning the demise depend and the state of the our bodies, with stories of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil’s Supreme Court docket, prosecutors and lawmakers requested Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro to offer detailed details about the operation.
“This was a bloodbath,” mentioned Barbara Barbosa, a home employee from the Penha complicated of favelas, one of many two big communities focused within the police operation. She mentioned her son was killed in a previous operation in Penha.
PABLO PORCIUNCULA/AFP through Getty Photographs
“Do we’ve a demise sentence? Cease killing us,” mentioned activist Rute Gross sales, 56. Many residents got here Penha in Rio’s poor, northern zone to the imposing Guanabara Palace on motorbikes.
The toll of 115 suspects and 4 policemen killed was a rise over what authorities initially mentioned had been 60 suspects lifeless in Tuesday’s raid by about 2,500 police and troopers within the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao.
Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, advised a information convention that our bodies of extra suspects had been present in a wooded space the place he mentioned that they had worn camouflage whereas battling with safety forces. He mentioned native residents had eliminated clothes and tools from the our bodies, in what could be investigated as proof tampering.
“These people had been within the woods, outfitted with camouflage clothes, vests and weapons. Now a lot of them appeared sporting underwear or shorts, with no tools, as if that they had come by means of a portal and adjusted garments,” Curi mentioned.
Earlier Wednesday, within the neighborhood of Penha, residents had surrounded most of the our bodies – collected in vehicles and displayed in a foremost sq. – and shouted “bloodbath” and “justice” earlier than forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the stays.
“They’ll take them to jail, why kill them like this? Numerous them had been alive and calling for assist,” resident Elisangela Silva Santos, 50, mentioned throughout the gathering in Penha. “Sure they’re traffickers, however they’re human.”
“They slit my son’s throat”
A day after the police operation paralyzed town, residents of the Complexo da Penha favela recovered dozens of our bodies from a forest on its outskirts, together with one which was decapitated, AFP journalists witnessed.
“They slit my son’s throat, lower his neck, and hung the top from a tree like a trophy,” mentioned Raquel Tomas, the mom of the 19-year-old who was discovered decapitated.
“They executed my son with out giving him an opportunity to defend himself. He was murdered,” she advised AFP, her voice shaking.
“Everybody deserves a second probability. Throughout an operation, police ought to do their job, arrest suspects, however not execute them,” Tomas added.
Silvia Izquierdo / AP 
Lawyer Albino Pereira Neto, who represents three households that misplaced kinfolk, advised AFP among the our bodies bore “burn marks” and that plenty of these killed had been tied up.
Some had been “murdered in chilly blood,” he mentioned.
“We noticed executed folks”
The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113 – up from 81 cited beforehand, Curi mentioned. The state authorities mentioned some 90 rifles and greater than a ton of medicine had been seized.
Police and troopers had launched the raid in helicopters, armored autos and on foot, concentrating on the Purple Command gang. They drew gunfire and different retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos throughout town on Tuesday. Colleges within the affected areas shuttered, a neighborhood college canceled lessons, and roads had been blocked with buses used as barricades.
Rafael Soares, a journalist masking crime in Rio, advised BBC Information Brasil that the Purple Command had been on the offensive in Rio lately, reclaiming territory it had misplaced to its rivals, First Capital Command.
Many retailers remained closed Wednesday morning in Penha, the place native activist Raull Santiago mentioned he was a part of a crew that discovered about 15 our bodies earlier than daybreak.
“We noticed executed folks: shot within the again, pictures to the top, stab wounds, folks tied up. This degree of brutality, the hatred that’s unfold – there is not any different solution to describe it besides as a bloodbath,” Santiago mentioned.
Supreme Court docket Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Castro to offer details about the police operation and scheduled a listening to with the state governor and the heads of the navy and civil police subsequent Monday in Rio.
The Senate’s fee for human rights mentioned it was asking for clarifications from the Rio state authorities. In the meantime, Rio prosecutors requested that Castro present detailed details about the operation and proof that there was no much less dangerous technique of reaching its goals.
MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP through Getty Photographs 
And the federal public prosecutor’s workplace requested the Forensic Medical Institute to make sure that post-mortem stories include full descriptions and photographic and radiographic documentation of all accidents.
Castro mentioned on Tuesday that Rio was at warfare in opposition to “narco-terrorism,” a time period that echoed the Trump administration in its marketing campaign in opposition to drug smuggling in Latin America.
On Wednesday, Castro known as the operation a “success,” aside from the deaths of the 4 law enforcement officials.
Rio’s state authorities mentioned that the suspects who had been killed had resisted police.
Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for many years. In March 2005, some 29 folks had been killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense area, whereas in Could 2021, 28 had been killed within the Jacarezinho favela.
However the scale and lethality of Tuesday’s operation are unprecedented. Non-governmental organizations and the U.N. human rights physique rapidly raised issues over the excessive variety of reported fatalities and known as for investigations.
“We absolutely perceive the challenges of getting to cope with violent and well-organized teams equivalent to Purple Command,” mentioned U.N. Human Rights Spokesperson Marta Hurtado mentioned.
However Brazil should “break this cycle of utmost brutality and be sure that regulation enforcement operations adjust to worldwide requirements relating to the usage of pressure,” she mentioned, including that the physique was calling for full-fledged policing reform.
Late on Wednesday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva mentioned on X that he had instructed the justice minister and director-general of Federal Police to fulfill Castro for a gathering in Rio.
Brazil can’t settle for that organized crime “continues to destroy households, oppress residents, and unfold medicine and violence throughout cities,” he mentioned.
The operation’s said goals had been capturing leaders and limiting the territorial growth of the Purple Command gang, which has elevated its management over favelas lately.
Gang members allegedly focused police with no less than one drone. Rio de Janeiro’s state authorities shared a video on X of what appeared to point out a drone firing a projectile from the sky.
“Drones dropping bombs is now a development utilized by closely armed prison teams,” Carlos Photo voltaic from the Royal United Providers Institute advised BBC Information.
Rio “alone on this warfare”
Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Celebration, mentioned Tuesday that Rio was “alone on this warfare.” He mentioned the federal authorities needs to be offering extra help to fight crime – in a swipe on the administration of Lula’s leftist administration.
His feedback had been challenged by the Justice Ministry, which mentioned it had responded to requests from Rio’s state authorities to deploy nationwide forces within the state, renewing their presence 11 occasions.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that extra coordinated motion was wanted however pointed to a latest crackdown on cash laundering for instance of the federal authorities’s motion on organized crime.
Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski mentioned it was clearly an especially bloody and violent operation.
“We should always mirror on whether or not this type of motion is appropriate with the Democratic Rule of Legislation that governs us all,” he advised journalists on Wednesday.
Legal gangs have expanded their presence throughout Brazil lately, together with within the Amazon rainforest.
Roberto Uchôa, from the Brazilian Discussion board on Public Security think-tank, mentioned that prison gangs have strengthened regardless of these sorts of operations, suggesting that they’re inefficient.
“Killing greater than 100 folks like this may not assist lower the Purple Command’s growth. The lifeless will quickly get replaced,” Uchôa mentioned.
