RIO DE JANEIRO
The farce of the arrest warrants in the Rio de Janeiro massacre
Only 4 of the 56 arrest warrants were served in Operation Containment
The police massacre carried out in the Penha and Alemão Complexes, which aimed to serve 51 arrest warrants against members of “criminal factions”, only arrested four people, revealing that the warrants were used as a pretext for a much more lethal and violent action than capturing the suspects. The operation resulted in the greatest lethality in the city’s history, with dozens of deaths and little effectiveness for the judicial objectives officially stated.
The operation was announced as an effort to contain the advance of the Comando Vermelho and was based on the fulfillment of judicial warrants, but the figures show that only 4 of the 51 targets were arrested. This indicates that the warrants were used more to justify the action than to arrest the alleged drug lords. Most of the dead were killed in a confrontation, and not in an arrest following due process, which shows the real intentions of this massacre.
The so-called “Contenção” operation, carried out in Rio’s North Zone, resulted in the biggest massacre in the city’s history. There were more than 134 official deaths, and 81 arrests, but few resulting from judicial warrants.
Organizations such as Amnesty International criticized the operation, pointing out that the security policy was marked by the illegitimate and disproportionate use of lethal force, violating international standards for police action.
