At least 45 people have been killed in a string of police operations across three Brazilian states, in a particularly bloody week even for Brazil – a country notorious for its police violence.
Ten people were killed during an operation by civil and military police against drug traffickers into the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday morning, with residents saying that heavy gunfire began at 3am.
In the north-eastern state of Bahia, 19 people are reported to have died between Friday and Monday in clashes with the military police in the state capital, Salvador, and nearby cities of Camaçari and Itatim.
Bahia and Rio de Janeiro are home to Brazil’s second and third most deadly police forces, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.
Meanwhile, state authorities in São Paulo confirmed on Wednesday that the death toll from an ongoing police operation in the Baixada Santista region has risen to 16, making this one of the deadliest operations ever carried out by the São Paulo police.
Dubbed Operation Shield, the deployment of some 600 police officers was prompted by the killing last Thursday of a police officer in Guarujá. A final suspect of being involved in the death of Patrick Bastos Reis, a member of the military police’s Rota tactical unit, was arrested early on Wednesday. Police say they have arrested 58 people so far and seized 400 kilos of narcotics, as well as 18 weapons.
Human rights organisations have denounced the actions of the police in the Baixada Santista as a revenge-motivated massacre, while residents have reported threats and cases of torture.
“What happened in Guarujá was a massacre. The deaths were deliberate. […] The state of São Paulo must contain this wave of violence,” Dimitri Sales, president of the state council on the defence of human rights (Condepe), told the broadcaster GloboNews.
The state governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, has defended the police, saying they acted in response to attacks from criminals and dismissing reports of abuses as a “narrative”. Operation Shield, ostensibly a push to fight drug trafficking in the region, is due to last until the end of August.
The authorities’ claim that all the victims are suspected criminals who died in clashes with the police has been disputed by human rights and security experts, who demand that the police’s actions be carefully scrutinised.
“It is extremely concerning that the governor and security secretary declare that there were no [human rights] abuses before an investigation is even held … [This] is effectively an endorsement of arbitrary practices,” said Oscar Vilhena, a lawyer and member of the Arns Commission, a human rights organisation.
Brazil’s state military police forces are notoriously violent, and much deadlier than their civilian counterparts. The return to power in January of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had sparked hope of a reform, but public security experts say a bill recently approved by a senate committee will fail to address crucial public security issues, such as police body cameras.
In São Paulo, the use of body-cams by the military police has been widely credited with helping reduce violence committed by and against the force. But killings by the São Paulo police have increased under Freitas, an ally of former president Jair Bolsonaro who embraces a hardline security discourse and has questioned the body-cam policy.
The latest killings could mark an “inflection point” for public security in Brazil’s largest state, according to David Marques, project coordinator at the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety. “This change is linked to a political discourse that values [violence], that says police should use violence to control violence and organised crime,” he said.
