Suspected gang members exchanged gunfire with police, hurled
Molotov cocktails at banks and burned buses for a second night in a
row, but South America's biggest city largely avoided the violence
with criminals rampaging in cities far from Sao Paulo.
There were at least 100 attacks against government institutions
and businesses late Monday and early Tuesday, a day after the First
Capital Command gang allegedly torched buses and banks, sprayed
police stations with gunfire and set off bombs throughout the
metropolis of 18 million, Sao Paulo's public safety department
said.
Police on stepped up patrols shot four suspected criminals dead,
raising the death toll to six since the violence began.
The public safety department could not immediately provide
details on how the deaths occurred and was still compiling an
overall breakdown on the latest outbreak across Brazil's most
populous state.
Brazilian media reported that banks, police stations and other
government buildings were targeted and buses were burned in at
least eight cities, most hundreds of kilometers from the city.
The latest crime spree allegedly initiated by the gang, known
here as the PCC, marks the third time in four months that it has
unleashed its fury on the streets to oppose the prison transfer of
its leaders to more secure lockups.
Anchored in local prisons and led by hardened criminals who
issue their orders via cell phones and instructions given to their
attorneys, the PCC is one of Brazil's most notorious organized
crime groups.
In the initial attacks on Monday, 78 symbols of government and
businesses across Sao Paulo state many in the city itself were
attacked in the pre-dawn hours, said state police commander,
Colonel Elizeu Eclair Teixeira Borges.
Assailants used machine guns, rifles, Molotov cocktails and
"other explosive devices" in hit-and-run attacks, avoiding direct
confrontation with police.
Police killed two suspects after they allegedly opened fire on a
gas station, torched a bus and tried to flee in a car as officers
chased them, Borges said. Twelve suspects were taken into custody.
One security guard was injured in a bank attack, and four
bystanders were hurt by glass after a Molotov cocktail was thrown
at a business, Borges said.
In one of the most prominent attacks, a large explosion damaged
the main entrance to the state justice ministry building,
destroying computers and blowing out windows of neighboring
buildings.
Bullets were fired through windows of a nearby state finance
ministry building. The suspected PCC members also targeted 32 bank
branches, Borges said.
Borges said the number of patrol cars circulating in Sao Paulo
at night was tripled and the number of police officers was
doubled.
Sao Paulo State Governor Claudio Lembo said the justice ministry
building may have been targeted because some prisoners believed
they would be refused permission to leave prison next Sunday
Father's Day in Brazil for visits home before being required to
return to their lockups.
During the May outbreak of violence, the PCC launched
unprecedented attacks on Sao Paulo's streets and inside prisons
that prompted a week of violence. The gang initially targeted
police officers shooting them on the streets, at stations and in
their homes leaving 41 dead.
Nearly 200 people in all were killed, among them prison guards,
suspected criminals, jail inmates and bystanders. Another 100
attacks on July 11-15 left at least six people dead.
The attacks came after gang leaders enraged at the May transfers
of 700 of their members to more secure prisons allegedly used
smuggled cell phones to order their "soldiers" on the streets to
attack.
(China Daily August 9, 2006)
