Residents of the Penha and Alemão favela complexes protested this Friday, the 31st, against the mega police operation that left at least 121 dead in Rio de Janeiro - and was the deadliest in the State.
The demonstration occurred hours after the public security leadership announced that 99 of the 117 dead had been identified. The community points out that the action was a massacre never before seen in history. Around 3:15 PM, the demonstrators were concentrated in Vila Cruzeiro. Several protests against the government of Cláudio Castro and the police are expected to take place this Friday in other regions of the country.
The action generated clashes between the federal and state governments, which were appeased after Castro and the Minister of Justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, announced a partnership to combat organized crime.
Earlier, in a press conference, the Secretary of Civil Police, Felipe Curi, said that 9 of them are identified by the police as drug trafficking leaders in various regions of the country.
Curi said that the communities in Rio have become a kind of "training center" for the CV faction, which uses the Penha and Alemão complexes as its main distribution points for weapons and drugs. According to the police chief, the arrest of Doca, identified as the main leader of CV today – and the target of the operation –"is a matter of time."
On Thursday, the Rio government reported that the IML (Institute of Legal Medicine) is being used exclusively for autopsies of those killed in Operation [Operation Name], and that family services are being provided in a Detran (Department of Motor Vehicles) building next to the institute. Cases unrelated to the police operation are being referred to the IML in Niterói, in the metropolitan area.
The Public Defender's Office of Rio de Janeiro stated that it was prevented from attending the forensic examinations, but assembled a task force of 40 professionals to assist the families – 106 of whom have already contacted the agency to obtain documents, request free burials, and arrange for the transfer of bodies to other states. Public Defender Mirela Assad, from the General Coordination of Institutional Programs (Cogpi), explained that...
