Brazil: new bloodbath during a police raid in a favela in Rio de Janeiro

Published on: 05/25/2022 – 06:19Modified on: 05/25/2022 – 06:22 A muscular police operation killed at least 22 people in the favela of Vila Cruzeiro, in the north of Rio de Janeiro, on Tuesday. It comes almost a year to the day after the deadliest raid in the history of the Brazilian city. Another day of mourning in Rio de Janeiro. At least twenty-two people were killed on Tuesday, May 24, during a new bloody police operation in the Brazilian favela of Vila Cruzeiro. Police said at least 11 victims were “suspects” and a favela resident was hit by a stray bullet. , claims to have been greeted by gunfire as she began an operation to “locate and capture hidden criminals” in Vila Cruzeiro. 01:15 “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 s were about to flee to another favela. He also revealed that a helicopter used by the police during the operation had been hit by several bullets. “(‘Red Command’), one of Brazil’s main criminal factions, “responsible for more than 80% of the shootings in Rio”, a police spokesman told TV Globo. Thirteen assault rifles, four pistols, twenty motorcycles and ten cars were seized in the operation, but police did not report any arrests. One of the deadliest police in the world During these operations strong members of the military police in Rio, residents and community activists often denounce blunders or extrajudicial executions of suspects, abuses most of the time unpunished. In May 2021, a police operation in the favela of Jacarezinho, about 10 km from Vila Cruzeiro, had thus left 28 dead, including a policeman, the heaviest toll in the history of the city. “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 upscale neighborhoods,” Guilherme Pimentel, auditor of the Public Defense, which provides legal assistance to the poorest, told AFP. The Brazilian police are one of those who kills the most in the world, with more than 6,100 deaths in 2021, an average of 17 a day. Police officers in Rio were supposed to wear body cameras on their uniforms starting this May, but the use of this material 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. With AFP