(São Paulo, May 31, 2021) -The attorney general for the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro should fully investigate the civil and criminal responsibility of civil police commanders for extensive human rights abuses during the most lethal police raid in the history of the state, which caused 28 deaths on May 6, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today.
The operation in Jacarezinho, an impoverished neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, resulted in the deaths of 27 residents, including a 16-year-old child, and one police officer.
“The Jacarezinho operation was a disaster that has brought enormous pain to the families of the 27 victims, as well as a police officer,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The Rio de Janeiro Attorney General’s Office should thoroughly investigate not only the officers directly involved in the raid, but also civil police commanders who planned and initiated it, and ensure full accountability for abuses and the apparent destruction of crime scene evidence.”
Human Rights Watch examined police, hospital and judicial records, witness testimony, and photos and videos of corpses, and found credible evidence of serious human rights abuses. Several witnesses said police executed at least three suspects; four detainees said police beat them; and there are multiple pieces of evidence indicating that officers removed bodies from the crime scene to destroy evidence.
Among other possible violations of the law, prosecutors’ investigations should address whether civil police commanders who ordered the operation complied with a Supreme Court ruling that prohibited the police, under penalty of “civil and criminal liability,” from conducting raids in low-income neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro during the Covid-19 pandemic, except in “absolutely exceptional cases.”
Prosecutors said the objective of the operation was to carry out arrest warrants for 21 people charged with conspiracy to engage in drug trafficking. The only evidence in the charging document, which Human Rights Watch reviewed, is photographs posted on social media that, prosecutors said, show the suspects with guns and drugs. The document describes the suspects as low-level gang members.
Although the Supreme Court did not spell out what could be considered “absolutely exceptional cases,” a high-risk, large-scale operation to detain low-level members of a drug gang does not reasonably fall into that category, Human Rights Watch said.
Under Brazilian law, the civil police investigate whether their members committed any abuses in the operation. This system does not meet the necessary requirements for an independent and impartial criminal investigation, Human Rights Watch said.
The head of the civil police homicide department, the unit in charge of the investigation, said on the day of the operation that “no execution” had taken place. He spoke even before police officers had given their initial statements to police investigators, which Human Rights Watch reviewed. Later, the chief of civil police stated that “Rio is much safer with these 27 criminals eliminated,” referring to the people killed by police.
Initial investigative steps by civil police have been woefully inadequate. About 200 civil police officers were involved in the raid, but civil police investigators only took statements from 29 on the day of the operation and did not question them individually, but in groups of two or more. The statements are cursory, in many cases just five lines long.
Police records show that civil police investigators seized only 26 police weapons for ballistic analysis on the day of the shootings and they only mention that forensic analysis was carried out at the sites of three of the 27 killings by police.
While civil police investigate all crimes in Brazil, prosecutors can also open their own investigations. The state attorney general announced on May 11 that he had set up a working group of four prosecutors to investigate the killings.
Prosecutors should conduct a fully independent investigation, Human Rights Watch said, including by having forensic experts who are independent of the civil police conduct their own analysis of the evidence. Prosecutors should also interview all witnesses and victims, who may understandably fear talking to civil police investigators about abuses committed by their colleagues.
A working group led by federal prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro asked the Rio attorney general to call on federal police to assist in the investigation to ensure its independence, and urged closing the civil police investigation. The Rio Attorney General’s Office rejected the recommendation.
The Rio Attorney General’s Office should investigate not only police officers or others directly involved in crimes committed during the raid, but also police commanders who planned and executed the Jacarezinho raid, and the chief of civil police of Rio de Janeiro, Human Rights Watch said. In particular, the office should examine commanders’ possible criminal and civil responsibility for actions or omissions both before, during, and after the operation, including likely destruction of key evidence. The prosecutors should also investigate whether commanders properly evaluated the risk to police officers who participated in the operation.
The Rio Attorney General´s Office told Human Rights Watch it had opened a civil investigation into whether civil police had failed to comply with the Supreme Court ruling prohibiting raids.
Federal prosecutors should also open a criminal investigation into whether commanders committed the crime of “disobedience” by not complying with the ruling. Supreme Court justice Edson Fachin called for such an investigation on May 21.
“The police should ensure people’s safety, but instead, the brutality and impunity with which they act in Rio’s poor neighborhoods make residents see them as a threat to themselves and to their children,” Vivanco said. “It is crucial for the Attorney General’s Office to defend the rights of those residents and the rule of law, and seek accountability for any abuses up to the highest levels of the police command.”