400 police officers move into a favela complex in Rio de Janeiro in armored vehicles early in the morning. You want to take action against a criminal gang whose members are also heavily armed. A civilian is also killed in the fierce firefights.
At least 18 people have been killed in a police operation in a slum in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. A police spokesman said the dead included 16 suspected criminal gang members, a 50-year-old local resident and a police officer. Other official sources even spoke of 20 dead during the operation in the favela Complexo do Alemão in the north of Rio.
The police, with almost 400 officers, moved into the slum with 70,000 residents, using armored vehicles and four helicopters. According to the police, the operation was directed against a gang that robs vehicles and banks. According to media reports, heavily armed members of police special forces and criminals engaged in fierce firefights. Authorities said police officers were "violently" attacked using "military and guerrilla" tactics. The criminals also used local residents as shields.
There were also serious allegations against the police. The friend of the killed 50-year-old woman told the news portal "G1" that she and he were traveling in a car. "There was a policeman at a traffic light, we stopped," said Denilson Glória. "They shot the car anyway." His girlfriend fell on him. "When I looked, she had a hole in her chest." Police announced an investigation into the woman's death.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro initially only lamented the death of the police officer killed in the operation on Thursday and did not comment on the other dead. "He died in a confrontation with bandits," said the right-wing politician.
The police repeatedly intervene with great severity in the slums of Rio de Janeiro known as favelas, known as havens for drug gangs and other criminal gangs. Morning raids in the maze of alleyways in the slums are not uncommon. Around 25 people were killed in a police operation in the Vila Cruzeiro favela in May. Last year, 28 people were killed in the deadliest raid in Rio's history in the Jacarezinho favela near Vila Cruzeiro.
Human rights activists are therefore raising serious allegations against the police and are even speaking of extrajudicial executions of suspects. This year, Brazil's highest court obliged the state of Rio de Janeiro to present a plan to reduce the number of deaths in police operations. Critics consider the paper that was subsequently submitted to be too vague. According to the Monitor da Violência (Violence Monitor) project, 1,356 people were killed in police operations in the state last year. That was more deaths than in any other state in the South American country.
