BRAZIL: PRISON-BASED GANG WARS WITH SAO PAULO POLICE, 170 DEAD.
The Brazilian city of Sao Paulo underwent several days of bloodshed as warfare between gangsters and police left more than 170 dead between May 12 and May 19. The violence began after prison authorities attempted to isolate leaders of the prison gang Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) by moving them from local jails and sending them to a more remote and secure detention center. Street warfare and multiple prison rebellions led to the bloodiest days in the city's history and paralyzed movement within Brazil's largest metropolis.
Riots in over 70 jails, nearly 200 street attacks
An effort to move 765 PCC members, including eight gang leaders, to a maximum-security facility sparked the weeklong street war in Sao Paulo, the nation's industrial and financial center of 22 million inhabitants. Gang leaders used cell phones that had been smuggled into the jails to coordinate rebellions in over 70 prisons and street attacks focused mostly on the city's Policia Militar (PM). By the time the bulk of the fighting was over, authorities reported 170 deaths: 41 police and prison officers, 107 "suspected criminals," 18 inmates, and four civilians. There was, however, some fluctuation in the numbers of casualties reported, leading human rights groups to express suspicions about police assassinations following the wave of attacks.
Masked assailants attacked bars, banks, and police stations with machine guns while inmates at dozens of prisons took guards hostage. Between May 12 and 16, police reported 181 attacks.
Nine bus companies, whose fleet of 5,100 buses accounted for more than a third of the city's total, halted service on May 15 after attacks destroyed 51 buses. Armed gang members reportedly boarded buses, ordered passengers off, and torched the vehicles. The city of Sao Paulo sent two cars with two guards equipped with bulletproof vests to each of the city's 23 bus terminals and stationed guards on main avenues, according to the mayor's office.
"What happened in Sao Paulo was a provocation, a demonstration of organized crime's strength," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters in Brasilia on May 15. When the uprising first began, Lula was in Europe attending a summit of European and Latin American leaders.
Sao Paulo's banking union, the country's biggest union, said 18 branches in Sao Paulo were shut after being attacked by the criminal gangs.
Sao Paulo's Roman Catholic Archbishop Claudio Hummes said the government had not done enough to...
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