First modification:
This Tuesday 22 people died and another 7 were injured in a favela complex in Rio de Janeiro, after a police operation that sought to capture drug traffickers from the criminal group ‘Comando Vermelho’, which according to Brazilian authorities is responsible for more than 80 % of armed confrontations in the State.
Iván Blas, spokesman for the Military Police, reported that the intervention was planned to dismantle the criminal group, considered one of the strongest in Brazil.
The official assured that this organization, in addition to carrying out various criminal actions, protects drug traffickers and commits homicides in other regions of the country.
“They have an expansionist policy, an ideology of confrontational war not only against the police forces but also against other criminal groups,” Blas assured.
The militarized police, the federal police and the highway police were the agencies in charge of carrying out the operation. According to the agents, when they entered the favela complex, they were shot at by members of the criminal groups, generating a confrontation that led to more than two dozen deaths.
During the police action, Gabriel Ferreyra de Cuña, a 41-year-old woman, who lived in the area and was walking near her house, died when she was hit by a stray bullet.
“It was the loss of an innocent life, we are not going to have great success in an operation as long as we have the death of an innocent… But unfortunately it is necessary that we carry out operations like this,” said the spokesman for the Military Police.
The police seized vehicles, motorcycles and what they called “an arsenal of war” made up of pistols, 10 grenades and approximately 13 fuses coming from China and Eastern Europe, which they claim arrived in Brazil through international arms trafficking.
However, human rights organizations such as ‘Human Rights Watch’, requested an “immediate and exhaustive investigation of the facts”, since they suspect that cases of extrajudicial executions, abuses against detainees and destruction of evidence by officials occurred during the incursion. .
In addition, they highlighted that the actions of the Police subjected the inhabitants to many hours of terror, for which they urged the Government to promote public security policies that “are not those of bullets.”
Faced with these demands and the results in human losses, the Rio de Janeiro Public Defender’s Office admitted that everything seems to indicate that what happened was a massacre.
“So far the legality of the operation and the proportionality in the use of force are being investigated, the high lethality raises the suspicion that a massacre could have been committed.” This was expressed in a joint statement by the Comptroller’s Office and the human rights defense nucleus of the local Public Defender’s Office.
Within 10 days, the members of the security forces who were in the favela will be interrogated so that they offer details of the circumstances of the deaths and the entire planning of the operation. In addition, all officers’ weapons will be examined by experts and will be kept in custody.
with EFE
#Brazil #police #operation #drug #traffickers #left #dead #favela #Rio #Janeiro