A bloody, hourslong gunbattle in a Rio de Janeiro slum echoed into Friday, with authorities saying the police mission successfully eliminated two dozen criminals, while residents and activists claimed human rights abuses.
It was just after sunrise Thursday when dozens of officers from Rio de Janeiro state’s civil police stormed Jacarezinho, a working-class favela in the city’s northern zone. They were targeting drug traffickers from one of Brazil’s most notorious criminal organizations, Comando Vermelho, and the bodies piled up quickly.
When the fighting stopped, there were 25 dead one police officer and 24 people described by the police as “criminals.”
Rio de Janeiro: At least 25 people were killed in a shootout between suspected drug traffickers and police in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, one of the state’s deadliest police raids, police said.
People targeted in the raid in the poor Jacarezinho neighborhood tried to escape across rooftops as police arrived in armored vehicles and helicopters flew overhead, television images showed. The firefight forced residents to shelter in their homes.
The victims included one police officer, and the remainder were suspected members of the drug-trafficking gang that dominated life in the slum, including some of its leaders, police said.
It was the deadliest single police operation in 16 years for Rio state which has suffered for decades from drug-related violence in its numerous favelas.
Bloody police raid in Brazil leaves at least 25 dead Credit:
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Police in a Rio de Janeiro slum engaged in an hourslong gunbattle Thursday targeting drug traffickers and leading to the death of at least 25 people, including one officer. The raid in the Rio de Janeiro Jacarezinho favela in the north of the city, which police authorities say was the result of a “long and detailed” investigation, targeted the Comando Vermelho, or Red Command, criminal organization.
Human rights activists accused the police of using excessive force, and called the raid one of the deadliest in Rio de Janeiro s history. Critics of the raid are also asking why the raid occured in the first place after a Supreme Court ban on law enforcement raids in the city during the pandemic.