🔗 Share this article

Bruno Itan

A photographer who observed the aftermath of an extensive law enforcement action in the metropolitan area has reported how community members brought back mutilated bodies of those who had died.

The victims "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", Bruno Itan described. The total contained security forces.

A particular victim had been decapitated - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he explained. Numerous victims displayed what he described as blade trauma.

In excess of 120 victims were fatally injured in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the most lethal operation Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness reported that he initially learned to the raid early on Tuesday by residents living in Alemão, who sent him messages informing him gunfire had erupted.

The photographer traveled to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the victims were being brought.

The eyewitness reported that law enforcement stopped members of the press from accessing the operation zone, where the operation were occurring.

"Law enforcement personnel established a perimeter and declared: 'Media representatives cannot proceed beyond this point'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who grew up in that neighborhood, reported he succeeded to make his way into the restricted zone, where he continued through the night.

He described that evening, area inhabitants began to search the hillside that separates Penha from the adjacent Alemão area for relatives whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Local people living in Penha organized the recovered bodies in a public space - and Itan's photos display the reaction of the people there.

"The brutality of what occurred shook me profoundly: the sorrow of loved ones, women collapsing, women carrying children, weeping, angry family members," the reporter recounted.

The eyewitness

The state leader of the region declared that the massive police operation involving around 2,500 officers was intended to halting a gang known as the criminal faction from increasing their control.

Initially, local officials maintained that sixty individuals plus four law enforcement personnel" had been killed during the action.

Officials subsequently stated that early calculations indicates that 117 individuals have been killed.

The public legal service, that offers legal help to disadvantaged individuals, has put the total number of people killed at 132.

According to researchers, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction which in recent years has succeeded to expand its territory across the region.

Experts commonly view one of the two largest gangs in the country, together with First Capital Command, and has a history extending half a century.

Per correspondent an expert, who has long reported on criminal activity in the city over many years, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with local criminal leaders affiliating with the group and becoming "operational allies".

The gang engages primarily in illegal drug trade, while also dealing in guns, gold, energy resources, liquor cigarettes.

Per law enforcement statements, criminal affiliates possess significant weaponry and police said that during the raid, they faced assaults using drone-delivered explosives.

The official of the state, the political leader, described organization participants as criminal extremists and called the security forces who died during the operation as courageous individuals.

Nevertheless, the total of people killed in the security action has received condemnation from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "horrified".

At a news conference on Wednesday, the state leader supported law enforcement.

"It wasn't our intention to kill anyone. We wanted to take suspects into custody without harm," he declared.

He added that the situation intensified because the suspects resisted aggressively: "It occurred of the resistance they implemented and the excessive violence from the gang members."

The official further reported that the casualties presented by community members in the area had been "manipulated".

In a post on social media, he said that particular individuals had been stripped of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "to redirect responsibility toward law enforcement".

A law enforcement representative from the police department further reported that "camouflage clothing, protective equipment, and arms" had been removed from the casualties and showed footage apparently demonstrating an individual removing tactical gear {off a corpse