At least 18 killed in police raid on Rio favela

At least 18 people were killed in the latest police raid targeting organised crime groups in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, Brazilian police said on Thursday.

A law enforcement officer and a woman who lived in the area were among those who died in the Complexo do Alemao slum, while the 16 others are believed to be members of organised crime groups, a police spokesman told a press conference.

Some 400 officers were involved in the massive operation, backed up by 10 bulletproof vehicles and four helicopters.

Their target was a criminal group that had robbed vehicles carrying cargo for banks and other businesses.

Police spokesman Ivan Blaz said the operation’s goal was to stop the “expansionist policy” of criminal gangs in Complexo do Alemao.

The Public Defender’s office and the Brazilian Bar Association’s human rights commission told AFP separately that they had been informed of 20 people being killed in the raids, including the officer and the bystander.

“There are signs of major human rights violations, and the possibility of this being one of the operations with the highest number of deaths in Rio de Janeiro,” the state public defender’s office said in a statement.

The military police declined comment beyond their statement.

President Jair Bolsonaro lamented the death of the police officer, 38-year-old Bruno de Paula Costa, but did not mention any of the other people killed.

“He died after a clash with criminals,” the far-right leader said in a statement broadcast on social media.

Colonel Rogerio Lobasso, the officer in charge of the operation, expressed his condolences over the 50-year-old woman’s death, which he said is under investigation.

Speaking to local media, residents of the favela accused security forces of attacking civilians and conducting house raids in the midst of intense exchanges of gunfire between security personnel and alleged criminals.

Some purported videos of the raid posted on social media, which could not be immediately verified by AFP, showed a burst of shots aimed at a police helicopter and barricades set on fire to prevent the passage of security forces.

Law enforcement authorities defended their officers’ conduct during the operation, saying that units had been “violently attacked” with “military and guerrilla” tactics, while accusing the alleged gang members of using civilians as human shields.

Police often carry out raids in Rio’s slums in a bid to fight organised crime.

In May, 22 people were killed, also including a female bystander, in an early morning raid of the Vila Cruzeiro favela.

That came almost a year after Rio’s deadliest police raid, in which 28 people were killed in the Jacarezinho slum.

Activists have denounced official abuse during such anti-crime operations, including extrajudicial killings of suspects, which they say often goes unpunished.

Rio police officers were due to begin wearing body cameras this year, which some security experts believe may help prevent some, but not all, problems of police abuse.

It was not immediately clear whether police were wearing body cameras during the Complexo do Alemao raid.

After the raid, locals could be seen bundling injured people into the back of vehicles to be taken to hospital as police watched.

Gilberto Santiago Lopes, from the Anacrim Human Rights Commission, said police refused to help.

“We had to carry them away in a beverage truck, and then flag a local resident in their car to take them to hospital,” he said. “(The police) don’t aim to arrest them, they aim to kill them, so if they’re injured, they think they don’t deserve help.”

Locals were furious and yelled at police. “We’re scared to live here,” one local screamed after the raid. “Where are we? Afghanistan? In a war? In Iraq? If they want a war, send them to Iraq.”