Brazilian gang riot death toll reaches 133
Police in Brazil killed 33 suspected gang members and searched motorists at roadblocks in a bid to quell a wave of attacks on Sao Paulo’s police stations, courts and buses that had plunged South America’s largest city into fear.
While gang attacks fell off sharply yesterday, the death toll since the violence began last Friday soared to 133 as police struck back at the gangs who had rampaged to protest against the prison transfer of their leaders.
Officers “acted within the law, but that doesn’t mean we have to let them humiliate us”, Marco Antonio Desgualdo, a Sao Paulo law enforcement chief, said.
Authorities said 33 suspected criminals were killed yesterday, bringing to 71 the number of suspected gang members killed since Friday night, Sao Paulo’s state government said.
Forty police officers and prison guards and four civilians were also killed.
Nine inmates died in the jails administered by the state government’s public security agency, said spokeswoman Carolina Farias.
Nine prisoners died in prisons overseen by the state government’s separate penitentiary division, the agency said in a statement.
Neither Farias nor penitentiary spokesman Marcelo Daniel knew how they died.
With guns drawn, plainclothed police in a Sao Paulo suburb stopped and frisked motorists in a hunt for more gang members.
The crime spree showed the strength of organised crime in the financial and industrial heart of Brazil and it sent fear rippling through the metropolis of 18 million.
Police in Osasco, 10 miles from the centre of Sao Paulo, were targeting motorcyclists with passengers for spot checks after an officer was shot dead by a gunman on the back of a bike.
Across Sao Paulo, police were redeployed in greater numbers to halt the attacks and authorities said at least 115 people had been arrested since Friday night.
But many citizens said the ferocity of the First Capital Command gang, or PCC, made them doubt law enforcement would solve the gang problem.
Some residents said they now feared being seen near police officers who could be targeted by attackers.
Using machine guns and grenades, gang members attacked dozens of police buildings, burned scores of buses and vandalised 15 bank branches over the weekend.
Inmates took over 73 prisons and held more than 200 guards hostage.
The violence finally ebbed yesterday, but Sao Paulo residents said they were still stunned.
“It’s a civil war,” said Manuela Nascimento, a 24-year-old news-stand worker. “I leave my house scared and go to work scared.”
In other South American countries like Venezuela, Peru and Paraguay, organised crime gangs keep a low profile as they smuggle drugs abroad.
The PCC, however, has focused on the booming local drug trade in Sao Paulo, where recruits are easy to find in crime-ridden slums.
The violence was triggered last Thursday by an attempt to isolate the gang leaders – who control many of city’s teeming, notoriously corrupt prisons – by transferring eight to a high-security jail.
The gang leaders reportedly used mobile phones to order the attacks.
