At least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed Thursday, May 6 in a large drug operation in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, according to police and Brazilian media. The operation was carried out early Thursday against drug traffickers accused of recruiting minors in the poor neighborhood of Jacarezinho, in northern Rio.
GloboNews television broadcast footage showing heavily armed fugitives escaping through the favela during the police operation. Residents also posted videos on social media showing explosions, firefights and helicopters flying over the area. Large numbers of police were seen moving around the favela, as frightened residents attempted to resume their occupations after the shooting ended.
Bloodbath
“The investigation follows information received by the child protection unit according to which drug traffickers are recruiting children and adolescents to join the main criminal gang in the region”police said in a statement. “These criminals carry out acts such as drug trafficking, theft of goods, assaults on pedestrians, homicides and attacking subway trains, among other crimes in the region”, according to this press release.
The Jacarezinho district is considered a base of the Comando Vermelho (Red Commando, Editor’s note), the most important drug trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro. Residents reported seeing corpses lying on the pavement in pools of blood, and many bodies pulled out of an armored police vehicle, a local community official said, asking for security reasons that his name not be published.
At least two people were also injured while traveling in the skytrain, caught in crossfire, according to media which showed images of two victims receiving treatment on the platform of Triagem station. According to the digital platform Fogo cruzado (Crossfire) which lists acts of violence in Rio de Janeiro, this is the heaviest toll for an operation of this kind since 2016, when the census began.
Ban on raids
The operation took place despite a Supreme Court ruling barring police from raiding impoverished Brazil’s favelas during the coronavirus pandemic, except in “Absolutely exceptional circumstances”.
Police say the operation follows an investigation that resulted in a warrant to wiretap suspects’ communications and identify 21 gang members “Responsible for ensuring territorial domination using firearms”.
The group “Had set up a military-type structure with hundreds of “soldiers” equipped with rifles, pistols, grenades, bulletproof vests, camouflage uniforms and other military accessories’, police said.