Reports collected by the General Ombudsman’s Office of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro, after Operation Containment was carried out, last Tuesday (28), in the Alemão and Penha complexes, in the north zone of Rio, denounce human rights violations. Among the reports, family members say that innocent people were killed or arrested, and women report being harassed by police officers. 
The General Ombudsman’s Office is an external body to the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
“They came into the house and were looking for something or someone and asked several questions, wanting to know if I lived alone, and I said that I lived with my mother and my two children.”
“Then, they kept drying me off and saying that a beautiful woman like me deserved to live in a better place. When the one with the ninja headdress came out, he squeezed my chest”, reports a 23-year-old woman who was not identified.
Another woman interviewed by the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro said in a report: “I was sleeping when they came in, and I only sleep with my shirt on, right? I woke up scared by their voices. Then, that’s when I saw that they were already inside my house. I’m a manicurist and I was working until late. They lifted the sheet with the end of a rifle and kept asking several questions and taking my shirt with the end of the rifle, and I asked ‘please, man, I’m not involved with anything. no’, and pointing to my nail bag. Then someone came in and took him out of my room.”
The reports are in the report Performance of the Public Defender’s Office in the Police Operation carried out in Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penhareleased this Sunday (2). The report refers to reports and events that were monitored by the ombudsmen on the 29th, 30th, 31st of October and 1st of November.
According to the Public Security Secretariat of the State of Rio de Janeiro, 121 people were killed in the operation, including four police officers and 117 civilians. The operation fulfilled 20 of the 100 arrest warrants issued by the courts and also included 180 search and seizure warrants. Another 93 people were arrested in the act. The target of the operation was the Red Command, which controls the territory.
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Impacted residents
According to the ombudsmen responsible for the report, the operation impacted the reality of the community’s residents, with the closure of schools, family clinics and social assistance facilities.
“Closed public facilities caused harm to the lives of countless children and adolescents. Outside of school, children and adolescents were left without classes and without the guarantee of daily food, resulting in food insecurity. Also noteworthy are the elderly and users of the Unified Health System, who were unable to make scheduled appointments or were without access to controlled medications. Other impacts were observed by the Ombudsman’s Office, such as a lot of trash on the streets, due to there being no garbage collection and many houses without electricity”, says the text.
An unidentified person reported: “They came in and invaded all the residents’ homes, right? Forcing them to open the doors by force. They didn’t respect children, they didn’t respect elderly people. They think everyone who lives in the favela is a drug dealer. But what I’m saying is [é que] There are teachers here, there are football players, a lot of lawyers, a lot of people who are here and who left here without getting involved with drugs, with weapons, with a wrong life.”
Violations
The reports collected report human rights violations such as: “theft of documents from residents, sexual harassment of women in the territory, use of houses to practice trojan [se esconder à espera de suspeitos]allegations of torture, executions, lack of expertise, use of bombs aimed at homes, failure to provide assistance, criminalization of leaders and families who removed the bodies”, says the report.
The ombudsmen were at the Alemão and Penha complexes and at the Legal Medical Institute (IML). Furthermore, they participated in a meeting at the Central Única de Favelas (Cufa) in Penha. They also accompanied the removal of bodies from the forest region called Vacaria.
“It was possible to identify that some bodies had their hands tied and many had gunshots to the head and stab marks,” say the ombudsmen.
Among the reports are also reports about innocent people who had been killed or arrested.
“My husband is a bricklayer and was killed in this operation. I found his body yesterday and I need support to bury him”, says one person about his spouse, who was the target of the operation.
Another person says the brother is missing. “My brother is a 17-year-old teenager and didn’t have a ticket. We’re looking for him. We’re not from Rio, girl. We came from Cabo Frio. We didn’t find him at the IML and we’re going to have trouble finding him, as he never got his ID. Please help us.”
In a third report, a person says that her husband was shot, is hospitalized, and had a gun planted in his car.
“They took the car to the Police City [complexo de delegacias da Polícia Civil do Rio de Janeiro] and there, by miracle, they found a gun. What a thing, right? In the search, in front of us, they found nothing and, by miracle, they found a gun there in the Police City, and the tires changed. The car was towed due to blown tires. My husband is in serious condition in the hospital and when he woke up in handcuffs, he was panicked and had to be sedated to calm down. My husband is a worker and doesn’t even have a bed. He’s in the yellow room and needs to go to a trauma unit. We don’t even live in the favela and, even so, we were victims of all this violence. Please help me”
Suggested measures
In the report, the ombudsman’s office makes a series of suggestions for measures to prevent the increase in deaths of children, young people and adults and violations of rights in favelas. Among them:
- Implementation of efficient police control mechanisms, such as the effective use of cameras in uniforms and vehicles, family access to the full content of police lethality investigations and increased effectiveness of external control of police activity, including efficient handling of complaints in real time by the Public Prosecutor’s Office determined by the STF [Supremo Tribunal Federal] at ADPF [Arguição de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental] 635;
- Independence of experts in cases of State violence, to guarantee efficient investigations;
- Investigation of the responsibility of the operational and political chain of command for the high rates of police fatality;
- Creation and promotion of specialized psychosocial care services for families who are victims of state violence;
- Creation of a rapid flow of reparations to families affected by state violence;
- Investment in public policies to guarantee the population’s rights, especially education, health, social assistance, work and income, culture and leisure, housing and transport, including with a focus on youth;
Police
THE Brazil Agency contacted the Public Security Secretariat, the State Military Police Secretariat and the Civil Police Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro.
In a note, the State Secretariat of Military Police says: “With regard to the State Secretariat of Military Police, the corporation fully collaborates with all investigative and investigative procedures regarding the actions.”
Until the publication of the article, the other bodies involved had not taken a position.
*Title changed at 8:35 pm to correct information
