Police said the operation was aimed at preventing the criminal organization Comando Vermelho from recruiting teenagers for train hijackings.
At least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed in a shootout Thursday during an operation against drug traffickers in the Jacarezinho slum in Rio de Janeiro, police said.
Suspects attempted to escape onto rooftops as police entered the slum in armored vehicles and helicopters flew overhead, television footage showed. The intense exchange of fire kept the residents at home.
Three policemen were shot dead and one died of a head injury in hospital, police said.
Bullets fired during the battle hit a light rail coach and two passengers were injured by shattered glass in the broken window, firefighters said.
Criminal siege
Jacarezinho is one of the most populous in the city poor neighborhoods, known as favelas, with some 40,000 inhabitants.
It is dominated by the Comando Vermelho, one of the main criminal organizations in Brazil. Police consider Jacarezinho to be one of the group’s headquarters.
Thursday’s operation was aimed at investigating the organization’s recruitment of teenagers to hijack trains and commit other crimes, police said in a statement.
They said the criminal gang had a “war structure of soldiers equipped with guns, grenades, bulletproof vests, pistols, camouflage clothing and other military accessories.”
Police said that among Jacarezinho’s dead were leaders of Comando Vermelho.
Candido Mendes University’s Public Security Observatory said at least 12 police operations in Rio state this year left at least three people dead.
Observatory director Silvio Ramos said Thursday’s raid was one of the deadliest in the city’s recent history.
“This is the highest number of deaths in a police operation in Rio, surpassing 19 in the slum of Complexo do Alemão in 2007, except that we did not lose one of our own in this action”, confirmed Police Chief Ronaldo Oliveira to Reuters.
Many raids appear to violate a decision by Brazil short Supreme last year, which ordered police to suspend operations during the Covid-19 pandemic, which is raging in Brazil, limiting them to “absolutely exceptional” situations.
There were 23 dead. And that’s called a security policy. For who?https://t.co/BCsqPRlLuw pic.twitter.com/kIj2vC6H5Y
– Pablo Nunes (@pblnns) May 6, 2021
The tweet says: There were 23 dead. And it’s called security policy. [Security] For who?
The Supreme Court declined to comment on the Associated Press question whether Thursday’s operation would qualify.
Rio police killed an average of more than five people a day in the first quarter of 2021, the deadliest start to the year since the state government began regularly releasing such data more than 2021 years ago. two decades, according to the Observatory.
