RIO DE JANEIRO | At least 21 people were killed in a bloody new police operation in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, a year after the deadliest raid in the city’s history, which had already claimed 28 lives.
At midday, the police provisional death toll stood at 11, but it almost doubled in a few hours, many bodies having been transported in the afternoon to a nearby hospital, according to a photographer from the AFP.
Rio state health authorities confirmed the presence of 20 bodies at Getulio Vargas Hospital, which also received seven wounded.
This report does not take into account the death of a resident of the favela of Vila Cruzeiro hit by a stray bullet that killed her instantly, according to the police, who assure that at least 11 victims were “suspects”.
The military police, who frequently carry out this kind of morning operations in the favelas of Rio against drug traffickers, claim to have been greeted by gunfire as they began an operation intended to “locate and capture hidden criminals” in Vila Cruzeiro.
“It was an operation planned for weeks, but we identified movements of criminals during the night and we decided to intervene”, explained Colonel Luiz Henrique Marinho Pires, who specified that the suspects were preparing to flee to another favela.
He also revealed that a helicopter used by the police during the operation had been hit by several bullets.
No arrests
The operation, which began around 4 a.m. on Tuesday, was particularly aimed at the “Comando Vermelho” (red commando), one of Brazil’s main criminal factions “responsible for more than 80% of the shootings in Rio”, said a police spokesperson at TV Globo.
Thirteen assault rifles, four pistols, twenty motorcycles and ten cars were seized in the operation, but police did not report any arrests.
The most intense shooting took place at dawn in the upper part of the favela, on top of a hill where the rainforest is blocked off with a dirt road.
Some suspects were reportedly shot in the forest, which would explain why a large number of bodies were found later in the day.
In 2010, images of dozens of armed individuals fleeing down this dirt road in broad daylight during a large-scale police operation went around the world.
Vila Cruzeiro, a favela not far from Rio’s international airport, had already been the scene of another violent clash in February, when eight people were killed by security forces.
In May 2021, a police operation in the Jacarezinho favela, about 10 km from Vila Cruzeiro, left 28 dead, including a police officer, the heaviest toll in the city’s history.
No cameras on uniforms
“Another massacre. Schools closed, thousands of people terrorized. It is the failure of all plans to reduce (police violence), the policy of extermination is taking its course in Rio, ”tweeted left-wing city councilor Tarcisio Motta.
During these muscular operations of the military police of Rio, residents and activists of associations often denounce blunders or extrajudicial executions of suspects, abuses most of the time unpunished.
“These operations in the favelas endanger the entire population and prevent the functioning of public services. We know that they would never be tolerated in chic neighborhoods, ”explains Guilherme Pimentel, public defense auditor, who provides legal assistance to the poorest, to AFP.
The Brazilian police are one of those who kill the most in the world, with more than 6,100 deaths in 2021, or 17 per day on average.
Police officers in Rio were supposed to wear body cameras on their uniforms starting this May, but the use of the equipment has been postponed due to delivery delays, according to local press.
Beyond the use of cameras, security experts advocate abandoning the logic of permanent confrontation in the fight against drug trafficking, to instead attack the financial resources of criminal factions.
