Protesters call for governor’s resignation after Rio’s deadliest police raid

By ELÉONORE HUGHES
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Hundreds of protesters on Friday marched through one of the favelas targeted in Rio de Janeiro’s most lethal police raid that left more than 100 dead, calling for Rio state Gov. Cláudio Castro to resign amid continued outrage over the deadly operation.

Locals, politicians, activists, grieving mothers who lost their sons in prior operations and people from other Rio neighborhoods gathered to voice their fury in Vila Cruzeiro, part of the Penha complex of favelas, where days prior residents laid out scores of bodies they had collected from a nearby green area following the raid.

At least 121 people were killed in Tuesday’s operation, including four policemen, according to police. Rio’s public defender’s office says 132 people died.

“Coward, terrorist, assassin! His hands are dirty with blood,” said Anne Caroline Dos Santos, 30, referring to Castro, an ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro and opponent of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Castro has accused the federal government of abandoning Rio in its fight against organized crime, a claim that Lula’s administration has refuted.

Dos Santos came from Brazil’s biggest favela Rocinha in Rio’s southern zone to voice her indignation. Like many other protesters, she accused law enforcement of torture and extrajudicial killings.

“Mothers are now battling to retrieve their sons’ bodies and bury them,” she said, adding that she had lost a friend in the operation.

Many shops have reopened since shuttering early this week, but there were still signs of recent events on the streets, including burned cars used as barricades against the police’s entry into the low-income neighborhood.

Many were wearing white, which a protester said symbolized their desire for peace, with some T-shirts printed with red hands. Others held signs saying: “stop killing us” or wore stickers reading “enough massacres.”

“This is a disgrace to Brazil,” said Leandro Santiago, 44, who lives in Vila Cruzeiro and earns a living through his motorbike, giving rides and doing deliveries. “Nothing justifies this.”

Tuesday’s raid, conducted by some 2,500 police and soldiers, targeted the notorious gang Red Command in the Complexo de Alemao and Complexo da Penha favelas.

The operation’s stated objectives were capturing leaders and limiting the territorial expansion of Red Command, which has increased its control over favelas in recent years but also spread across Brazil, including in the Amazon rainforest.

The police raid drew gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city.

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. He called the operation a success.

The state government said those killed were criminals who resisted the police.

But the death toll, the highest ever in a Rio police operation, sparked condemnation from human rights groups and the U.N. and intense scrutiny from authorities. Brazil’s Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers ordered Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes scheduled a hearing with the state governor and the heads of the military and civil police in Rio on Nov. 3.

Much of the fury in Vila Cruzeiro on Friday was directed at Castro, with protesters calling him an “assassin” and demanding his resignation or even that he be sent to prison.

“The governor said he was doing this operation to combat drug-trafficking. But we need to suffocate who is financing it. We need policies that seek to tackle corruption,” said Mônica Benício, a local councilwoman and the widow of slain councilwoman Marielle Franco.

“Assassinating young people in favelas isn’t public policy, it’s a massacre,” she added.

While some in Brazil, particularly right-wing voters and politicians, applauded the operation against the heavily-armed gang, others questioned whether it would achieve lasting results and argued that many of those killed were low-ranking and easily replaceable.

On Friday, the state government said that of the 99 suspects identified so far, 42 had outstanding arrest warrants and at least 78 had extensive criminal records.

But local newspaper O Globo said that none of the 99 names were indicted by the Rio de Janeiro public prosecutor’s office in the investigation that supported the major operation.

At the protest, many condemned the state the bodies were found in, with at least one decapitated, while others reportedly found with puncture wounds or tied up.

Adriana Miranda, a 48-year-old lawyer at Friday’s demonstration, said that even if the young men killed were suspected of participating in organized crime, they still had rights.

“Suspicions need to be investigated. There is a whole procedure established in the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure that must be followed,” she said. “The constitution guarantees everyone’s rights.”