STF Justice Fachin sees signs of “arbitrary executions” in Rio police operation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Friday, May 7, Justice Edson Fachin of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) described as “serious” the allegations of abuses in the police operation in a Rio de Janeiro favela, whose death toll is now 28, and said he had seen signs of “arbitrary executions” in videos he had analyzed.

The magistrate sent a request to the Federal Prosecutor General (PGR) to verify the allegations and in response to a petition from the Legal Aid Group of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) to open an investigation into alleged police abuses in Thursday’s operation in the Jacarezinho favela.

Among the material sent to the magistrate to support the petition is a video in which a police officer appears invading a residence and shooting a man already surrendered and lying on the floor, as well as witness statements recounting various abuses in the operation.

The facts “appear serious” and “there are indications of acts that, in theory, could constitute arbitrary execution,” Fachin said in the petition sent to the PGR.

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The lawyers of the UFRJ Legal Aid sent their appeal to Fachin because the magistrate was the rapporteur of a decision of June 2020 in which the STF restricted police operations in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro as long as the health emergency caused by the covid pandemic remains.

According to the complainants, the Civil Police, responsible for the operation that led to the largest massacre in Rio de Janeiro’s history on Thursday, violated this provision since there were no “exceptional situations” that justified the raid on the favela.

Fachin asked the PGR to “keep him informed about the measures adopted and, eventually, about the possible (criminal) responsibility of those involved in the events depicted in the video.”

The operation, which involved some 200 agents and lasted nine hours, was described as “successful” by the Civil Police, which denied the accusations of abuse and affirmed that the action – which aimed to dismantle a drug gang that recruited minors for criminal activities – was planned, authorized and supervised by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rio de Janeiro.

Read also: Police operation causes “the biggest massacre in the history of Rio de Janeiro”

Official figures indicate that one policeman was killed minutes after being hit in the head at the start of the operation, and that 24 suspects died during the intense gun battles that followed the operation in the Jacarezinho favela.

According to accounts from neighbors and videos posted on social networks, during the operation, agents invaded residences without judicial authorization, shot people who had surrendered, and confiscated witnesses’ cell phones.

Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, demanded a thorough and independent investigation into possible police abuses.

The United Nations (UN) Office for Human Rights expressed its concern about the operation and denounced possible attempts by the security forces to prevent an independent investigation of what happened.

For this reason, the organization urged Brazil’s prosecutor general to initiate a thorough and impartial investigation of the events “following international standards”.