“It wasn’t our intention to kill anyone. We wanted to arrest them all alive. But it was retaliation. It was a consequence of the retaliation they carried out and the disproportionate use of force by those criminals,” Rio’s governor Claudio Castro told a press conference alongside Brazilian Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.
The Tuesday operation killed at least 119 people, according to Rio police, including four officers, though public defenders said the final count would rise to at least 132. State police said the raids targeting a major drug gang had been planned for more than two months, designed to drive suspects into a forested hillside where a special operations unit was waiting in ambush.
The Rio state government said the operation was its largest ever to target the Comando Vermelho gang, which controls the drug trade in several favelas. Police said they arrested 113 suspects and seized 118 firearms. Lewandowski announced federal support for Rio, offering space in maximum-security federal prisons for gang leaders and deploying additional National Force personnel, Federal Highway Police officers, and forensic experts.
–Reuters–
