A police operation in the Jacarezinho favela caused …

Police operation against drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro favela killed 25 on Thursday, including a policeman. The balance of action in the Jacarezinho favela is the deadliest a police operation in the history of this city, say the researchers. As the civilian police reported in a statement, a man in uniform was shot in the head and “24 suspects” were also killed by police bullets. Residents and NGOs denounced summary executions: police refused them.

From the early hours of the day, this community turned into a real battlefield, with intense shootings and helicopters flying over the houses. Neighbors reported abuse of force by officers. A bride could not attend her own wedding, and a pregnant woman with a scheduled Caesarean could not leave their home, among other things.

Residents reported finding dead on terraces and alleys and that many bodies were loaded onto an armored police truck., a community leader told AFP, which asked not to be identified for security reasons.

The explosion of a grenade in the area frightened residents and passengers of the nearby metro, Triagem station, in Jacarezinho, north of Rio. Two people were shot and wounded inside the subway formation and are interned out of danger.

During a press conference at the end of the afternoon, the civil police (PC, which deals with criminal investigations) confirmed the assessment initially given by the press of “24 suspects” and an agent killed and assured that “all the protocols” of the company before opening fire “have been met, without exception”.

“Unfortunately, there have been many clashes in the community. There is nothing to celebrate in this balance,” said a CP official. The dead agent was shot in the head “at the start of the operation,” he added.

The police raid took place as part of an investigation into a gang recruiting children and adolescents for drug trafficking, theft, kidnapping and murder.

For Silvia Ramos, coordinator of the Network of Public Security Observatories, it was “a badly planned operation, and with a deceased police officer, it became a revenge operation”.

“Who are the dead? Young black people. And that is why the police are talking about 24 suspects. You only need to be young, black and living in a favela to become a suspect,” Ramos said..

Members of human rights organizations visited the favela and, along with neighbors, inspected homes that had been invaded during police action, some with traces of blood and destruction .

A resident said that a young man was killed in his house, where he had taken refuge injured. “The boy arrived shot and since no one in the community can send another one away, he stayed. But the police saw blood and came shouting, “Where is he? Where is he? while they killed him in the room, ”the woman said.

Jacarezinho is considered a base of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), the main drug trafficking organization in Rio.

The deadliest operation

“If we think of the massacres with the participation of off-duty police officers (illegal revenge operations), those of Vigario Geral in 1993 (22 dead) and that of Baixada in 2005 (31 dead)” are similar, said Silvia Ramos .

“But in legal operations, Jacarezinho broke all records,” he added.

The device was implemented despite a Supreme Court ruling preventing police from raiding outlying neighborhoods for the duration of the pandemic. coronavirus, except in “absolutely exceptional circumstances”.

The Igarapé Institute, which specializes in security and development issues, deemed “unacceptable that the public security police of the State (of Rio) continue to rely on lethality as the main strategy, especially in vulnerable areas”.

According to data from the Institute of Public Security cited by Igarapé, the Rio police “were responsible for the deaths of 453 people between January and March of this year”, a number which already represented “36% of the total deaths in the country. ‘whole of 2020 “, when 1,245 people were killed.