A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force Wednesday and calls for Rio’s governor to resign.
Families of the dead decried what they described as executions by police, while the state government hailed a successful operation against a powerful criminal group that has taken over large swaths of the city.
Dozens of favela residents gathered in front of the state’s government headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint. This protest came a day after Rio’s deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.
BBC News verified several videos showing dozens of bodies laid out in a row in a market area of Rio, in its northern Penha district. Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds.
Brazil’s Supreme Court, prosecutors, and lawmakers asked Rio state Governor Claudio Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.
“This was a massacre,” said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.
“Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us,” said activist Rute Sales, 56.
Many residents from Penha, in Rio’s poor northern zone, arrived at the imposing Guanabara Palace on motorbikes. The toll of 115 suspects and four policemen killed was an increase from the original figure of 60 suspects dead in Tuesday’s raid by about 2,500 police and soldiers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao.
Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, told a news conference that bodies of additional suspects were found in a wooded area where he said they had worn camouflage while battling with security forces. He added that local residents had removed clothing and equipment from the bodies, which is being investigated as evidence tampering.
“These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now many of them appeared wearing underwear or shorts, with no equipment, as if they had come through a portal and changed clothes,” Curi said.
Earlier Wednesday, in the neighborhood of Penha, residents had surrounded many of the bodies collected in trucks and displayed them in a main square, shouting “massacre” and “justice” before forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the remains.
“They can take them to jail, why kill them like this? Lots of them were alive and calling for help,” said resident Elisangela Silva Santos, 50, during the gathering in Penha.
“Yes, they’re traffickers, but they’re human. They slit my son’s throat,” said Raquel Tomas, mother of a 19-year-old found decapitated among the bodies recovered from a forest on the outskirts of Complexo da Penha. Tomas told AFP, her voice shaking, “They executed my son without giving him a chance to defend himself. He was murdered.”
“Everyone deserves a second chance. During an operation, police should do their job, arrest suspects, but not execute them,” she added.
Lawyer Albino Pereira Neto, who represents three families that lost relatives, told AFP that some of the bodies bore “burn marks” and that several had been tied up. Some were “murdered in cold blood,” he said.
“We saw executed people,” said local activist Raull Santiago, who was part of a team that found about 15 bodies before dawn. “We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred that is spread—there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre.”
The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113, up from 81 cited previously, Curi said. The state government reported seizing some 90 rifles and more than a ton of drugs.
Police and soldiers launched the raid using helicopters, armored vehicles, and on foot, targeting the Red Command gang. They came under gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city on Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas shuttered, a local university canceled classes, and roads were blocked with buses used as barricades.
Rafael Soares, a journalist covering crime in Rio, told BBC News Brasil that the Red Command gang had been on the offensive in recent years, reclaiming territory lost to its rivals, the First Capital Command.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Governor Castro to provide information about the police operation and scheduled a hearing with the state governor and the heads of the military and civil police next Monday in Rio.
The Senate’s Human Rights Commission requested clarifications from the Rio state government. Meanwhile, prosecutors demanded detailed information about the operation and proof that there was no less harmful method to achieve its objectives.
The federal public prosecutor’s office asked the Forensic Medical Institute to ensure that autopsy reports include full descriptions and photographic and radiographic documentation of all injuries.
Castro described Rio as being at war against “narco-terrorism,” echoing rhetoric from the Trump administration’s campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America. On Wednesday, he called the operation a “success,” aside from the deaths of the four police officers. The state government claimed the suspects killed had resisted police.
Rio has seen lethal police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in the Baixada Fluminense region, while in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela. Still, the scale and lethality of Tuesday’s operation are unprecedented.
Non-governmental organizations and the U.N. human rights body quickly raised concerns over the high number of fatalities and called for investigations.
“We fully understand the challenges of having to deal with violent and well-organized groups such as Red Command,” said Marta Hurtado, U.N. Human Rights Spokesperson. “But Brazil must break this cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force.” She added that the U.N. is calling for full-fledged policing reform.
Late on Wednesday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on X (formerly Twitter) that he had instructed the justice minister and director-general of the Federal Police to meet with Castro in Rio. “Brazil cannot accept that organized crime continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence across cities,” he said.
The operation’s stated goals included capturing gang leaders and limiting the territorial expansion of the Red Command, which has increased its control over favelas in recent years. Gang members allegedly targeted police with at least one drone.
Rio de Janeiro’s state government shared a video on X showing what appeared to be a drone firing a projectile from the sky.
“Drones dropping bombs is now a trend used by heavily armed criminal groups,” said Carlos Solar from the Royal United Services Institute.
Governor Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said Tuesday that Rio was “alone in this war,” criticizing the federal government for insufficient support against crime. His comments were challenged by the Justice Ministry, which stated it had responded to all requests from Rio’s government to deploy national forces, renewing their presence 11 times.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with parliament, agreed more coordinated action is needed but pointed to recent crackdowns on money laundering as evidence of federal efforts against organized crime.
Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski called the operation “an extremely bloody and violent operation” and said, “We should reflect on whether this kind of action is compatible with the Democratic Rule of Law that governs us all.”
Criminal gangs have expanded their presence across Brazil in recent years, including the Amazon rainforest.
Roberto Uchôa, from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety think-tank, said these operations have failed to curb gang influence. “Killing more than 100 people like this won’t help decrease the Red Command’s expansion. The dead will soon be replaced,” he said.
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This police raid in Rio de Janeiro highlights the deep and complex challenges Brazil faces in tackling organized crime, raising significant human rights concerns amid efforts to restore order.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazil-police-raid-119-dead-protests-mother-claims-son-decapitated/