Passenger killed as gunman takes 40 hostages on bus
A gunman held 40 passengers on a Rio de Janeiro bus hostage for nearly an hour, killing one man before being arrested, police said today.
The hostage situation began yesterday evening after Wellington Luiz Goncalves de Jesus de Souza, 23, held up a city bus inside a major tunnel linking the Brazilian city’s southern and western districts and began robbing passengers, police said.
After leaving the tunnel, the driver stopped the bus in front of a police patrol car and ran out the door.
Police encircled the bus and began negotiating with Souza, while he held a gun to the head of 20-year-old Nelson Morais Faria.
Police said that Souza demanded a car and when police said it was on the way, Souza shot Faria in the head, killing him. He then tried to shoot three other passengers, but his gun jammed.
Souza then reportedly called someone on a mobile phone and asked them how to unjam the gun and then tried to shoot himself in the head before police seized him.
In June 2002, a similar stand-off ensued when a gunman held passengers on a city bus hostage for several hours before police killed one of the hostages in a botched rescue attempt.
The gunman was later strangled by police as he was being taken to the police station.
The strangulation was later ruled legitimate self-defence on the part of the officers.
That incident was broadcast live across the nation on several television networks and was later the subject of the highly regarded documentary “Bus 174".
Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s most violent cities, with an annual murder rate of 50 per 100,000 residents. The rate is substantially higher in the shantytowns.
