At least 10 people died this Wednesday in a police operation against drug trafficking in the Complexo da Penha, a group of favelas in the north of Rio de Janeiro, reported the military police.
This new incursion brings to 43 the number of deaths in similar operations by security forces in different states in the last six days, adding another 14 in the state of Sao Paulo (southeast) and 19 in Bahia (northeast).
The action in Rio was aimed at “locating and arresting members of criminal groups” in the region, whose leaders would meet this Wednesday, according to intelligence information that guided the police action, a statement said.
As in the other cases, the force reported that officers “were fired upon” by armed individuals and clashes ensued.
“Eleven suspects were rescued” and taken to a hospital, but “nine of them did not resist” their injuries.
Among the dead are two criminal gang leaders, Fiel and Du Leme, according to police.
In addition, a military policeman was injured and is in “stable condition.”
Seven rifles, ammunition and grenades were seized.
Police operations, common in popular neighborhoods in Brazil, have multiplied in the last week, commanded by the Military Police that depends on the state governments.
In Sao Paulo, the trigger was the shooting of police officer Patrick Bastos Reis, 30, during a patrol in the municipality of Guarujá, in Bajada Santista, some 60 kilometers from the capital of São Paulo.
In response, the so-called Operation Shield against organized crime was deployed, which has left 14 dead so far since the weekend, authorities reported.
São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas said that drug trafficking had “taken” Bajada Santista, a region made up of nine municipalities near Sao Paulo.
Freitas, former minister of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), justified the retaliation against the suspects who “confronted” the police, and denied excesses.
The Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, said instead that the reaction of the security forces did not seem “proportionate in relation to the crime committed.”
The violence was replicated in parallel in Bahia, a state governed by the Workers’ Party (PT) of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
On Friday, seven “suspects” died in an operation in the town of Camaçari, 50 km north of Salvador. On Sunday there were another eight deaths in an incursion in Itatim, 200 km to the west, and another four died in a neighborhood of Salvador.
In 2022, Brazil registered 6,429 deaths at the hands of the police, according to data from the NGO Brazilian Public Security Forum, a reference in the matter.
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