SAO PAULO, Brazil – 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.
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 streets, at their stations, in their homes and at afterwork hangouts.
The latest deaths boosted the overall death toll to 155 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 the commander of Sao Paulo’s state police said on TV that 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 said 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 156 included 93 suspected criminals, 41 police and prison guards, 18 prison inmates killed in riots and four civilians, according to state police. Eclair said authorities were still trying to identify 40 of the dead criminal suspects.
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.
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