Suspicions of “torture” and D’“summary executions” during a raid in a favela, suspect died of asphyxiation in a car trunk: Brazil has again been shocked in recent days by a series of serious police violence.
“We saw a corpse whose face was covered with a white powder, which looked like cocaine”testified Rodrigo Mondego, head of the human rights commission at the Rio bar, after the police operation which killed more than 20 people on Tuesday, May 24, in Vila Cruzeiro, a favela in Rio de Janeiro.
“Those who killed this person smeared cocaine on his face and possibly made him eat it. This is an act of torture”he said, adding that testimonies also reported people killed with knives.
According to the latest report from the health authorities who counted the corpses, 26 people died during the raid, including a 41-year-old woman hit by a stray bullet.
But Rio police, who say they were met with heavy gunfire in Vila Cruzeiro, revised their death toll to 23 on Thursday, saying three bodies came from another favela 5km away where clashes were believed to have taken place. between drug traffickers.
“We also suspect a large number of summary executions. Witnesses told us that men who surrendered to the police were shot dead in the woods” on the upper part of the favela, said Rodrigo Mondego.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation on Tuesday into “possible violations” human rights violations perpetrated by agents in Vila Cruzeiro.
The Brazilians were also shocked by the death of a man, asphyxiated after being placed in the trunk of a police car. The scene, filmed by a witness, went viral on the Internet.
The video clearly shows two helmeted PRF officers attempting to close the trunk of a car on a man whose legs are still sticking out. A thick white smoke which seems to come from a tear gas canister escapes from the trunk. The man moves his legs for about a minute, then becomes motionless. Officers then fold up his legs and close the trunk.
The Federal Highway Police (PRF) assured in a statement on Thursday that the agents had “employed techniques of immobilization and instruments with low offensive potential” in front of “aggressiveness” of Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, during a routine check. In a statement, the organization Human Rights Watch expressed its “consternation”.
The Brazilian police are one of those who kill the most in the world: in 2021, more than 6,100 people died in police operations, and 183 officers were murdered, according to figures from a violence monitoring organization.
Qualified as “massacre” by many elected officials and community activists, Tuesday’s operation resulted in the second worst toll in Rio’s history for a police raid in a favela.
The sad record dates from a year ago, with 28 dead, including a policeman, during an incursion by the police into the Jacarezinho favela. On Tuesday evening, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro congratulated the “warriors” law enforcement agencies to have “neutralized at least 20 misfits linked to drug trafficking”.