The body count grew in South America's largest city yesterday 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 the streets, at their stations, in their
homes and at afterwork hangouts.
Saulo de Castro de Abreu, Sao Paulo state public safety
secretary, told reporters the identities of the criminals killed
were not revealed "so as not to jeopardize investigations."
The latest deaths boosted the overall death toll to 156 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 cannot be turned into carte blanche to
kill," said Ariel de Castro Alves, coordinator of Brazil's National
Human Rights Movement.
But in an interview with Brazil's Globo TV, the commander of Sao
Paulo's state police said 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 told Globo TV that 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 155 included 93 suspected criminals,
40 police and prison guards, 18 prison inmates killed in riots and
four civilians, according to the state police. Eclair said
authorities were still trying to identify 40 of the dead criminal
suspects.
Critics said police were using public sympathy to justify
systematic killings that may end up with the deaths of innocent
people.
"It's likely that the police are taking advantage of the general
public outrage about the heinous crimes committed by the PCC to
take brutal action against suspects," said James Cavallaro, a
Harvard Law School professor who is also vice president of Rio de
Janeiro's Global Justice Center.
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.
Brazilian lawmakers decided to vote later this week on 30
measures to beef up security and reduce the influence of gang
leaders who maintain control from behind bars.
The bills would let authorities keep gang leaders in solitary
confinement for as long as two years, up from the current one
year.
It would also fund a nationwide prison intelligence agency and
would require cellular telephone service providers to block cell
phone signals inside prisons. Gang leaders reportedly used smuggled
cell phones from prison to order the attacks.
But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government said
Congress should not rush into legislation. He said Brazil didn't
spend enough on education from the 1960s through the 1990s,
condemning men now in their 20s and 30s to lives of crime instead
of giving them a future. He said he prefers to spend more on
schools than on prisons.
"Either we give hope to these youths or organized crime will do
it for us. I prefer that people work, earning their pay day to day
with their sweat to win this battle against organized crime."
But many Sao Paulo residents say the gang problems are the
result of corrupt and poorly paid police, a judicial system that
doesn't mete out harsh punishment and decades of failure by
politicians to deal with the problem.
Maria Jose Belo, a 50-year-old secretary, said the cycle of
violence will simply continue if nothing is changed.
"From violence only comes violence," she said. "I think this is
just revenge. Now the police have an excuse to kill gang
members."
(Chinadaily.com.cn via agencies, May 18, 2006)
