Getulio Vargas Hospital staff take away an injured individual from a police truck after he was injured in a police operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, on Tuesday.
Silvia Izquierdo/AP
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Silvia Izquierdo/AP
RIO DE JANEIRO — About 2,500 Brazilian police and troopers launched a large raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, arresting 81 suspects and sparking shootouts that left not less than 60 suspects and 4 cops useless, officers mentioned.
The operation included officers in helicopters and armored automobiles and focused the infamous Purple Command within the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha, police mentioned.
The police operation was one of the violent in Brazil’s current historical past, with human rights organizations calling for investigations into the deaths.
Rio’s state Gov. Claudio Castro mentioned in a video posted on X that 60 legal suspects have been “neutralized” through the huge raid that he referred to as the most important such operation within the metropolis’s historical past. Some 81 suspects have been arrested, whereas 93 rifles and greater than half a ton of medication have been seized, the state authorities mentioned, including that these killed “resisted police motion.”
Rio’s civil police mentioned on X that 4 officers died in Tuesday’s operation. “The cowardly assaults by criminals towards our brokers is not going to go unpunished,” it mentioned.
An unknown variety of individuals have been wounded.
The United Nations’ human rights physique mentioned it was “horrified” by the lethal police operation, referred to as for efficient investigations and reminded authorities of their obligations underneath worldwide human rights regulation.
César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, referred to as Tuesday’s occasions “an enormous tragedy” and a “catastrophe.”
“The general public prosecutor’s workplace should open its personal investigations and make clear the circumstances of every dying,” Muñoz mentioned in an announcement.
Footage on social media confirmed fireplace and smoke rising from the 2 favelas as gunfire rang out. The town’s Training Division mentioned 46 colleges throughout the 2 neighborhoods have been closed, and the close by Federal College of Rio de Janeiro canceled night time courses and informed individuals on campus to hunt shelter.
Suspected gang members blocked roads in northern and southeastern Rio in response to the raid, native media reported. At the very least 70 buses have been commandeered for use within the blockades, inflicting vital injury, the town’s bus group Rio Onibus mentioned.
The operation Tuesday adopted a 12 months of investigation into the legal group, police mentioned.
Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Occasion, mentioned the federal authorities must be offering extra help to fight crime — a swipe on the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that coordinated motion was wanted however pointed to a current crackdown on cash laundering for example of the federal authorities’s motion on organized crime.
Police collect outdoors the Getulio Vargas Hospital the place a colleague was introduced after getting injured in an operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, on Tuesday.
Silvia Izquierdo/AP
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Silvia Izquierdo/AP
Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and quite a lot of ministers met in response to the operation on Tuesday afternoon. Chief of Workers Rui Costa requested an emergency assembly in Rio on Wednesday, with him in attendance in addition to Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.
Rising from Rio’s prisons, the Purple Command legal gang has expanded its management in favelas lately.
Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for many years. In March 2005, some 29 individuals have been killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense area, whereas in Might 2021, 28 have been killed within the Jacarezinho favela.
Whereas the Tuesday’s police operation was just like earlier ones, its scale was unprecedented, mentioned Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public security knowledgeable at Pontifical Catholic College of Minas Gerais.
“What’s completely different about right this moment’s operation is the magnitude of the victims. These are conflict numbers,” he mentioned.
He argued that these sorts of operations are inefficient as a result of they don’t are likely to catch the masterminds, however slightly goal underlings who can later get replaced.
“It is not sufficient to go in, trade gunfire, and depart. There is a lack of technique in Rio de Janeiro’s public safety coverage,” Sapori mentioned. “Some lower-ranking members of those factions are killed, however these people are rapidly changed by others.”
The Marielle Franco Institute, a nonprofit based by the slain councilwoman ‘s household to proceed her legacy of combating for the rights of individuals residing in favelas, additionally criticized the operation.
“This isn’t a public security coverage. It is a coverage of extermination, that makes the on a regular basis lifetime of Black and poor individuals a Russian roulette,” it mentioned in an announcement.
