More than 600 people were killed by police in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro state in the first months of this year, and most were black or biracial.
The raid sought to halt gang recruitment of teenagers, police said in an earlier statement, which also cited Comando Vermelho’s “warlike structure of soldiers equipped with rifles, grenades, bulletproof vests.”
Television images showed a police helicopter flying low over Jacarezinho as men with high-powered rifles hopped from roof to roof to evade officers.
Others didn’t escape.
One resident told the Associated Press how a man barged into her modest home about 8 a.m. bleeding from a gunshot wound. He hid in her daughter’s room, but police came rushing in right behind him.