The bodies just kept coming - reporter shares fatal Rio law enforcement operation

Bruno Itan

An eyewitness who documented the results of a massive law enforcement action in Rio de Janeiro has reported how community members returned with badly injured victims of the deceased individuals.

The bodies "kept piling up: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45...", the photographer reported. The total contained those of police officers.

One individual had been decapitated - while others appeared "severely damaged", he said. Numerous victims displayed what appeared to be stab wounds.

In excess of 120 victims lost their lives in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the deadliest such raid the municipality has seen.

The eyewitness explained that residents first notified him about the operation Tuesday morning by community members living in Alemão, who contacted him telling him gunfire had erupted.

The reporter made his way to the Getúlio Vargas hospital, where the casualties were arriving.

Itan explained that law enforcement stopped members of the press from accessing the operation zone, where the police action was under way.

"Security forces created a barrier and announced: 'Media representatives are not allowed to pass'."

But Itan, who spent his childhood in that neighborhood, reported he managed to gain access into the cordoned-off area, where he remained through the night.

He reported that evening, local residents started looking the mountainous area that borders the community of Penha and the neighboring Alemão community for relatives whose whereabouts were unknown after the operation.

Residents of the Penha neighbourhood arranged the discovered victims in a public space - the documented evidence display the reaction of the gathered crowd.

"The brutality of it all affected me profoundly: the sorrow of relatives, women collapsing, pregnant wives, weeping, angry family members," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The official of the region declared that the large-scale security action with approximately 2,500 officers was designed to preventing a criminal group called Red Command from increasing their control.

At first, local officials claimed that sixty alleged criminals and four police officers" were fatally injured in the raid.

They have since said that early calculations suggests that 117 "suspects" were fatally injured.

The legal assistance organization, that gives legal support to the poor, has put the total number of fatalities to be 132.

Based on expert analysis, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that in the past few years has managed to increase its control across the region.

Experts commonly view one of the two largest gangs in the country, in company with another major gang, and has a history dating back more than 50 years.

According to reporter Rafael Soares, with extensive experience documenting crime in Rio extensively, the gang "works as a system" with area gang leaders joining the organization and acting as "business partners".

The organization engages primarily in illegal drug trade, additionally trafficking weapons, precious metals, fuel, beverages and tobacco.

Per law enforcement statements, organization members possess significant weaponry and officials reported that during the raid, they encountered resistance from explosive-laden drones.

The state leader of Rio state, Cláudio Castro, described organization participants as "narcoterrorists" and described the security forces who died during the operation as "heroes".

But the number of casualties in the security action has received condemnation from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "shocked".

In a media appearance on Wednesday, Governor Castro supported law enforcement.

"We did not plan to cause fatalities. We aimed to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He continued that the circumstances intensified due to the alleged criminals fought back: "It resulted of the retaliation they executed and the excessive violence from the gang members."

The state leader additionally stated that the casualties displayed by locals in Penha had been "manipulated".

Via a statement through digital channels, he said that some of them had been removed of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "in order to shift blame to security forces".

A law enforcement representative from the police department also said that military attire, body armor, and weapons" had been removed from the casualties and presented video appearing to show an individual cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse