By ELÉONORE HUGHES and DIARLEI RODRIGUES
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — About 2,500 Brazilian police and troopers launched a large raid on a drug-trafficking gang in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday, arresting 81 suspects and sparking shootouts that left no less than 60 suspects useless, officers mentioned.
The operation included officers in helicopters and armored autos and focused the infamous Crimson Command within the sprawling low-income favelas of Complexo de Alemao and Penha, police mentioned.
The police operation was one of the vital violent in Brazil’s current historical past, with no less than one human rights group calling for an investigation into every demise.
Rio’s state Gov. Claudio Castro mentioned in a video posted on social platform X that 60 legal suspects have been “neutralized,” 81 arrested and 75 rifles seized in the course of the large one-day raid that he referred to as the most important such operation within the metropolis’s historical past. A considerable amount of medicine additionally was seized, the state authorities mentioned.
An Related Press journalist additionally noticed the our bodies of no less than two cops amongst 10 our bodies dropped at the Getulio Vargas hospital in Penha. Police didn’t instantly affirm the deaths of officers.
An unknown variety of individuals additionally have been wounded.
César Muñoz, director of Human Rights Watch in Brazil, referred to as Tuesday’s occasions “a huge tragedy” and a “disaster.”
“The public prosecutor’s office must open its own investigations and clarify the circumstances of each death,” Muñoz mentioned in a press release.
Footage on social media confirmed hearth and smoke rising from the 2 favelas as gunfire rang out. The town’s Training Division mentioned 46 faculties throughout the 2 neighborhoods have been closed, and the close by Federal College of Rio de Janeiro canceled night time lessons and instructed individuals on campus to hunt shelter.
Suspected gang members blocked roads in northern and southeastern Rio in response to the raid, native media reported. At the least 70 buses have been commandeered for use within the blockades, inflicting “significant damage,” town’s bus group Rio Onibus mentioned.
The operation Tuesday adopted a yr of investigation into the legal group, police mentioned.
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – A police officer stands over bloodied individuals mendacity at the back of a police truck dropped at the Getulio Vargas Hospital throughout a police operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Silvia Izquierdo)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Getulio Vargas Hospital staff take away an injured individual from a police truck after he was injured throughout a police operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Silvia Izquierdo)
Police collect outdoors the Getulio Vargas Hospital the place a colleague was introduced after getting injured in an operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Silvia Izquierdo)
Police collect outdoors the Getulio Vargas Hospital the place a colleague was introduced after getting injured in an operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Silvia Izquierdo)
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EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – A police officer stands over bloodied individuals mendacity at the back of a police truck dropped at the Getulio Vargas Hospital throughout a police operation towards alleged drug traffickers within the Complexo do Alemao favela the place the legal group “Comando Vermelho” operates in Rio de Janeiro, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025. (AP Picture/Silvia Izquierdo)
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Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Occasion, mentioned the federal authorities needs to be offering extra help to fight crime — a swipe on the administration of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that coordinated motion was wanted however pointed to a current crackdown on cash laundering for instance of the federal authorities’s motion on organized crime.
Rising from Rio’s prisons, the Crimson Command legal gang has expanded its management in favelas in recent times.
Rio has been the scene of deadly police raids for many years. In March 2005, some 29 individuals have been killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense area, whereas in Could 2021, 28 have been killed within the Jacarezinho favela.
Whereas the Tuesday’s police operation was much like earlier ones, its scale was unprecedented, mentioned Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public security knowledgeable at Pontifical Catholic College of Minas Gerais.
“What’s different about today’s operation is the magnitude of the victims. These are war numbers,” he mentioned.
He argued that these sorts of operations are inefficient as a result of they don’t are likely to catch the masterminds, however fairly goal underlings who can later get replaced.
“It’s not enough to go in, exchange gunfire, and leave. There’s a lack of strategy in Rio de Janeiro’s public security policy,” Sapori mentioned. “Some lower-ranking members of these factions are killed, but those individuals are quickly replaced by others.”
The Marielle Franco Institute, a nonprofit based by the slain councilwoman ’s household to proceed her legacy of combating for the rights of individuals dwelling in favelas, additionally criticized the operation.
“This is not a public safety policy. It’s a policy of extermination, that makes the everyday life of Black and poor people a Russian roulette,” it mentioned in a press release.
