The body count grew in South America's largest city Wednesday as police, who
lost 41 comrades in gang attacks killed 22 more suspected criminals. Authorities
said little about the latest deaths, generating criticism from rights groups.
Brazil's civil police
and prison guards protest as they hold a banner that reads 'Prisons, the
chaos!' in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday, May 17, 2006. The toll of
dead rose in eerie silence Wednesday in South America's largest city as
police who lost 40 comrades in gang attacks killed 22 more suspected
criminals, but said little about how they are doing it generating
criticism from human rights groups. [AP] |
Police did not identify any of those they killed, say where they were killed
or in what circumstances, Sao Paulo's leading newspapers reported Wednesday.
Human rights activists said they feared innocent people may have been hurt in
the strikes by police enraged by a notorious gang's attacks on officers on the
streets, at their stations, in their homes and at afterwork hangouts.
Saulo de Castro de Abreu, Sao Paulo state public safety secretary, told
reporters the identities of the criminals killed were not revealed "so as not to
jeopardize investigations."
The latest deaths boosted the overall death toll to 156 since a wave of
violence enveloped Sao Paulo last Friday, and came after officers shot 33
presumed gang members dead only a day earlier.
"The climate of terror can't be turned into carte blanche to kill," said
Ariel de Castro Alves, coordinator of Brazil's National Human Rights Movement.
But in an interview with Brazil's Globo TV, the commander of Sao Paulo's
state police said officers are now convinced they have stopped the gang attacks
because most of the latest shootings happened outside of metropolitan Sao Paulo
and none were the work of the First Capital Command gang.
Police claimed earlier they had gained the upper hand in their fight against
the gang, accused of ordering the attacks on authorities after eight gang
leaders were transferred to a lockup hundreds of miles from Sao Paulo.
In contrast to earlier killings of police suspects, Col. Elizeu Eclair told
Globo TV that the confrontations Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were
sparked by smaller-scale criminals seeking clashes with authorities.
"We're seeing that this had nothing to do with organized crime," he said.
The six-day death toll of 155 included 93 suspected criminals, 40 police and
prison guards, 18 prison inmates killed in riots and four civilians, according
to the state police. Eclair said authorities were still trying to identify 40 of
the dead criminal suspects.
Critics said police were using public sympathy to justify systematic killings
that may end up with the deaths of innocent people.
"It's likely that the police are taking advantage of the general public
outrage about the heinous crimes committed by the PCC to take brutal action
against suspects," said James Cavallaro, a Harvard Law School professor who is
also vice president of Rio de Janeiro's Global Justice Center.
Despite the easing of gang attacks, Sao Paulo residents said they were still
scared, and many supported the police's aggressive response.
"Now the gang members are going to be scared. Police already died anyway, and
it will make the gangs have a little more respect for the police," said Walter
Lahoz, a 58-year-old taxi driver.
Brazilian lawmakers decided to vote later this week on 30 measures to beef up
security and reduce the influence of gang leaders who maintain control from
behind bars.
The bills would let authorities keep gang leaders in solitary confinement for
as long as two years, up from the current one year.
It would also fund a nationwide prison intelligence agency and would require
cellular telephone service providers to block cell phone signals inside prisons.
Gang leaders reportedly used smuggled cell phones from prison to order the
attacks.
But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government said Congress should not
rush into legislation. He said Brazil didn't spend enough on education from the
1960s through the 1990s, condemning men now in their 20s and 30s to lives of
crime instead of giving them a future. He said he prefers to spend more on
schools than on prisons.
"Either we give hope to these youths or organized crime will do it for us. I
prefer that people work, earning their pay day to day with their sweat to win
this battle against organized crime."
But many Sao Paulo residents say the gang problems are the result of corrupt
and poorly paid police, a judicial system that doesn't mete out harsh punishment
and decades of failure by politicians to deal with the problem.
Maria Jose Belo, a 50-year-old secretary, said the cycle of violence will
simply continue if nothing is changed.
"From violence only comes violence," she said. "I think this is just revenge.
Now the police have an excuse to kill gang members."
