The victims kept arriving - photographer recounts lethal Rio security action

Bruno Itan

A photographer who witnessed the consequences of a large-scale law enforcement action in the Brazilian city has described how local people returned with badly injured victims of those who had died.

The casualties "continued arriving: the count kept increasing", Bruno Itan described. Among them were those of police officers.

One of the bodies was discovered headless - while others appeared "severely damaged", he explained. Many also had what appeared to be knife injuries.

Over 120 individuals were killed during the security action on a criminal gang - the bloodiest action the municipality has seen.

Bruno Itan explained that he was first alerted concerning the action early on Tuesday by community members from the Alemão area, who reached out alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The eyewitness made his way to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the bodies were arriving.

Itan explained that security forces stopped members of the press from going into the operation zone, where the police action was under way.

"Law enforcement personnel established a perimeter and announced: 'Media representatives cannot proceed beyond this point'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who spent his childhood in the community, stated he managed to gain access into the cordoned-off area, where he continued until dawn.

He described that evening, area inhabitants began to search the hillside that borders the Penha neighborhood from the neighboring Alemão community for relatives who were unaccounted for since the police raid.

Residents of the Penha neighbourhood organized the located casualties in a square - and Itan's photos reveal the emotions of the people there.

"The violence of it all impacted me deeply: the grief of the families, parents losing consciousness, expectant spouses, weeping, outraged parents," the eyewitness remembered.

The eyewitness

The state leader of the region stated that the massive police operation with approximately 2,500 law enforcement members was designed to halting a criminal group known as Red Command from growing their influence.

Originally, local officials stated that sixty individuals and four police officers" had been killed in the raid.

Authorities later reported that initial estimates shows that 117 "suspects" have been killed.

The public legal service, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has put the overall count of people killed as 132.

According to researchers, the criminal organization is the only criminal group that recently has been able to expand its territory across the region.

Experts commonly view as a major illegal faction nationally, in company with another major gang, featuring a timeline extending half a century.

Based on reporter Rafael Soares, who has long reported on illegal operations in Rio extensively, Red Command "works as a system" with neighborhood bosses affiliating with the group and acting as "operational allies".

The gang engages primarily in narcotics distribution, but also smuggles weapons, valuable minerals, fuel, beverages smoking products.

According to the authorities, gang members possess significant weaponry and police said that during the raid, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The state leader of the state, the political leader, described Red Command members as "narcoterrorists" and referred to the four police officers fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals.

But the number of casualties in the operation has received condemnation from international human rights authorities stating they were "appalled".

At a news conference the following day, the official justified security actions.

"It wasn't our intention to cause fatalities. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he stated.

He continued that the circumstances worsened because the suspects had retaliated: "It occurred of the resistance they implemented and the disproportionate use of force by those criminals."

The state leader further reported that the casualties displayed by locals in the neighborhood had been "tampered with".

In a post on online platforms, he said that some of them had been removed of military-style attire which he claimed they wore "to transfer accusation to security forces".

A police official representing security forces additionally stated that tactical gear, body armor, and arms" were stripped from the victims and presented video seemingly depicting a man cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse