Deadly police shootout prompts claims of abuse in Brazil
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Bloody gunbattle
A bloody, hour-long gunbattle in a Rio de Janeiro slum echoed into Friday, with authorities saying the police killed two dozen criminals while residents and activists claimed human rights abuses and a Supreme Court justice hinted at an investigation.
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Targeting drug traffickers
It was just after sunrise Thursday when dozens of officers from Rio de Janeiro state's civil police stormed Jacarezinho, a favela in the city's northern zone. They were targeting drug traffickers from one of Brazil's most notorious criminal organizations, Comando Vermelho, and the bodies piled up quickly.
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28 dead
When the fighting stopped, there were 28 dead _ one police officer and 27 people described by the police as ``criminals.'' A day after the raid, Rio police had identified the 48-year-old officer who died, but none of the others killed in the operation.
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Deadliest police operations ever
Rio's moniker of ``Marvelous City'' can often seem a cruel irony in the favelas, given their violent conflicts, stark poverty and subjugation to drug traffickers or militias. But even here, Thursday's clash was a jarring anomaly that analysts declared one of the city's deadliest police operations ever.
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Human rights issue
And it was by far the most violent since Brazil's Supreme Court issued a ruling banning most such actions during the pandemic, which drew a rebuke from the U.N.'s human rights office.