Sao Paulo police quell gang warfare
Reports of a deal cut as police mow down 33 suspects in less than 24 hours. SAO PAULO — Police struck back yesterday to quell gang warfare that has rampaged through South America’s largest city, killing 33 suspected gang members in less than 24 hours and frisking motorists at roadblocks while reporting only one death of their own.
At least 133 people — including 40 police officers and prison guards — had been killed since Friday night, when a prison transfer of gang leaders sparked attacks on police stations, courts, city buses and other symbols of government authority.
But while gang attacks fell off sharply, the death toll rose dramatically. Chief among them were the 33 new deaths of suspected criminals announced by authorities, bringing the total number of suspected gang members killed since Friday to 71.
Officers ‘‘acted within the law, but that doesn’t mean we have to let them humiliate us,’’ Marco Antonio Desgualdo, a top Sao Paulo state law enforcement official, told reporters. He did not give specifics about the killings.
Separately, prison officials said the bodies of 18 inmates were found after police retook control of dozens of lockups where prisoners rioted at the same time that gang members attacked officers across Sao Paulo.
The crime spree showed the strength of organized crime in the financial and industrial heart of Brazil, and it sent fear rippling through the metropolis of 18 million.
Across Sao Paulo, police were redeployed in greater numbers to halt the attacks, and authorities said at least 115 people had been arrested since Friday night. But many citizens said the ferocity of the First Capital Command gang, or PCC, made them doubt law enforcement will ever solve the gang problem. Some Sao Paulo residents said they now fear being seen near police officers who could be targeted by attackers.
‘‘It’s a civil war,’’ said Manuela Nascimento, a 24-year-old newsstand worker. ‘‘Now I leave my house scared and go to work scared.’’
Sao Paulo’s two leading newspapers reported yesterday that authorities cut a deal with the gang to stop the attacks — claims Desgualdo strongly denied. But crime experts said such a deal sounded plausible, given the growing strength of the gang, which was formed in a prison in 1993 and expanded to between 10,000 and 30,000 members
"There is no accord," Desgualdo said. "They prodded the jaguar with a short stick, they got trouble." He mocked reported demands by the prisoners for new televisions to watch the upcoming soccer World Cup. "Plasma television? The only plasma I know is blood," he said.
(Herald staff with AP, Reuters
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