(Rio de Janeiro) At least 18 people, including a resident, died Thursday during a gigantic police operation against organized crime in a favela in Rio de Janeiro.
Posted at 8:24 p.m.
Of these 18 people killed, 16 are “suspected” of belonging to criminal gangs, another is a resident of the favela and another a 38-year-old member of the police, said a spokesperson for the police at a press conference.
The Defender of Rights’ office and the Human Rights Commission of the Brazilian Bar Association separately told AFP they had information of a total of 20 dead, including the policeman and the woman.
The death of the latter, a 50-year-old woman named Leticia Marinho de Sales, is under investigation. “We don’t know how it happened,” Colonel Rogério Lobasso, the military police officer for the operation, said after expressing regret.
A man posing as the 50-year-old’s boyfriend told the G1 news site that police shot at the car they were in. “There was a policeman at a red light, we stopped. But they still shot at the car. I just saw her fall on my side. When I looked at her, she had a hole in her chest,” Denilson Gloria said.
President Jair Bolsonaro, for his part, regretted the death of the police officer, Bruno de Paula Costa, without mentioning the other deceased. “He died after a clash with bandits,” said the far-right head of state during his traditional social media show, in which he also complained about the alleged legal difficulties encountered by the authorities. to carry out operations in the favelas.
Nearly 400 members of the security forces participated in this operation, with several armored vehicles and four aircraft, in this sprawling favela to confront a gang specializing in the robbery of vehicles transporting goods and funds.
Residents complained to local media about the police operation, during which homes were reportedly invaded.
“Expansionist politics” of gangs
The testimonies collected by G1 show intense exchanges of gunfire between the authorities and the criminals. Some videos posted by Internet users show a burst of fire against a police helicopter.
Authorities said their units had been “violently attacked”, with “military and guerrilla” tactics, during the operation, and accused some suspected criminals of using civilians as human shields.
“The police must react to protect themselves and protect the population,” remarked Fabricio Oliveira, coordinator of the special civilian police unit (CORE), during the press conference. He called the operation “iconic” because it took place in an area traditionally off-limits to law enforcement and where, he said, criminals from other Brazilian states find refuge.
Ronaldo Oliveira, undersecretary for civilian police operations, said he would have preferred the officers “to have captured the 15 or 14 [présumés criminels abattus]but unfortunately they chose to shoot the police.”
The authorities had previously explained that the operation was intended to curb the “expansionist policy” of the Complexo do Alemao gangs in “various points in the state of Rio de Janeiro”.
Rio State Military Police claimed on Twitter that ‘criminals’ from Complexo do Alemao set fire to barricades, oiled public streets and attacked officers to make the operation more difficult in order to be able to flee.
This is the second police operation with a heavy human toll in a Carioca favela in recent months, after that which occurred in May in Vila Cruzeiro, which claimed the lives of 25 people, including 23 suspects.
Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered the state of Rio in February to come up with a plan to avoid such heavy tolls, and the strategy was presented in March, but human rights organizations, which often denounce alleged extrajudicial executions during this type of operation, considered it too vague.
In 2021, 1,356 people were killed by police forces in this state, the highest number of deaths and injuries in clashes in Brazil, according to Monitor da Violência.