Death toll in Brazilian police raid rises to 119, drawing criticism of excessive force

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro left at least 119 people dead, officials said Wednesday, as the Rio police's deadliest operation ever drew criticism of excessive force.

The new toll of 115 suspects and four policemen killed was an increase over what authorities originally said were 60 suspects dead in Tuesday’s raid by about 2,500 police and soldiers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao.

Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, told a news conference that bodies of additional suspects were found in a wooded area where he said they had worn camouflage while battling with security forces. He said local residents had removed clothing and equipment from the bodies, in what would be investigated as evidence tampering.

"These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now many of them appeared wearing underwear or shorts, with no equipment, as if they had come through a portal and changed clothes,” Curi said.

Earlier Wednesday, in the neighborhood of Penha, residents had surrounded many of the bodies — collected in trucks and displayed in a main square — and shouted “massacre" and “justice” before forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the remains.

“They can take them to jail, why kill them like this? Lots of them were alive and calling for help,” resident Elisangela Silva Santos, 50, said during the gathering in Penha. “Yes they’re traffickers, but they’re human.”

The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113 — up from 81 cited previously, Curi said. The state government said some 90 rifles and more than a ton of drugs were seized.

Police and soldiers had launched the raid in helicopters, armored vehicles and on foot, targeting the Red Command gang. They drew gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city on Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas shuttered, a local university canceled classes, and roads were blocked with buses used as barricades.

Many shops remained closed Wednesday morning in Penha, where local activist Raull Santiago said he was part of a team that found about 15 bodies before dawn.

“We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred that is spread - there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre,” Santiago said.

Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro said on Tuesday that Rio was at war against “narco-terrorism,” a term that echoed the Trump administration in its campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America.

On Wednesday, Castro called the operation a “success,” apart from the deaths of the four police officers.

Rio’s state government said that the suspects who had been killed had resisted police.

Rio has been the scene of lethal police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, while in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela.

But the scale and lethality of Tuesday’s operation are unprecedented. Non-governmental organizations and the U.N. human rights body quickly raised concerns over the high number of reported fatalities and called for investigations.

“We fully understand the challenges of having to deal with violent and well-organized groups such as Red Command,” said U.N. Human Rights Spokesperson Marta Hurtado said.

But Brazil must “break this cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force,” she said, adding that the body was calling for full-fledged policing reform.

The operation's stated objectives were capturing leaders and limiting the territorial expansion of the Red Command gang, which has increased its control over favelas in recent years.

Gang members allegedly targeted police with at least one drone. Rio de Janeiro’s state government shared a video on X of what appeared to show a drone firing a projectile from the sky.

Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said Tuesday that Rio was “alone in this war.” He said the federal government should be providing more support to combat crime — in a swipe at the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

His comments were challenged by the Justice Ministry, which said it had responded to requests from Rio’s state government to deploy national forces in the state, renewing their presence 11 times.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that more coordinated action was needed but pointed to a recent crackdown on money laundering as an example of the federal government’s action on organized crime.

Lula's chief of staff, Rui Costa, requested an emergency meeting Wednesday in Rio with local authorities and Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

Criminal gangs have expanded their presence across Brazil in recent years, including in the Amazon rainforest.

Roberto Uchôa, from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety think-tank, said that criminal gangs have strengthened despite these kinds of operations, suggesting that they are inefficient.

“Killing more than 100 people like this won’t help decrease the Red Command’s expansion. The dead will soon be replaced,” Uchôa said.

Filipe dos Anjos, secretary general of favela rights’ organization FAFERJ, echoed the sentiment.