Police suspected of killing at least 30 in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Gunmen believed to be rogue policemen killed at least 30 people in a shooting spree in a Rio de Janeiro suburb that officials said on Friday could be a bloody response to a crackdown on corrupt and brutal officers.

It was worst death squad massacre in more than a decade in the Brazilian city, which has become accustomed to daily bloodshed involving police, drugs gangsters and other criminals.

Innocent men, women and children were killed at random in Thursday night's attack in Baixada Fluminense in Rio's rough north side.

The victims included a civil servant drinking in a bar, a young boy playing pinball, a cook on his way home from work and a transvestite prostitute, morgue officials said.

Marcelo Itagiba, Rio's Public Security Secretary, said outlaw police likely carried out the massacre in reprisal for the arrests earlier on Thursday of eight officers suspected of a separate double murder. In that case, police were filmed throwing the severed head of one victim over the wall of a police station.

The arrests were part of an drive against corruption and criminal activity by police in a city that is on the verge of social breakdown despite being a spectacular tourist destination.

"This is a public calamity, a barbarous crime," Itagiba said at a news conference on Friday.

Early signs from the investigation ordered by Rio Governor Rosinha Matheus suggested police officers were the killers.

Bullets collected from the crime scene were shot by the same guns that police use, said Alvaro Lins, head of the state's investigation force.

"The crimes were committed by professionals," he said.

SEVERELY PUNISHED

Justice Minister Marcio Thomaz Bastos promised the murderers would be severely punished.

Local officials blamed death squads formed by corrupt cops to carry out executions, either for hire or for other personal motives.

"Everyone knows that there are extermination groups acting indiscriminately here," said Lindeberg Farias, the mayor of Nova Iguacu, where some of killings took place.

Witnesses said the gunmen fired at random, leaving innocent victims no time to escape.

"It was very quick. I got up to my house and went down the hallway when I heard a rain of gunfire. We were stunned. When we arrived, the car (carrying the shooters) had already left," Creuza Regina, the grandmother of one victim, told reporters.

Family members expressed outrage.

"I'm in shock. My nephew was playing with his cousin and was brutally assassinated," said Angelo Soares, uncle of a 14-year-old victim.

This was Brazil's worst urban massacre since 1993, when 21 people were murdered by a police death squad.

"Any hopes that such actions were horrors of the past have been dashed by the events of last night, which show the lengths that 'death squads' will go to in order to spread terror and resist attempts by the authorities to stop their activities," Amnesty International said in a statement.

Rio is a city plagued by violent crime, with rival drugs gangs controlling many slum areas and defying authorities.

"The situation is getting much worse. The control of public authorities over the situation is very precarious," Jose Vicente da Silva Filho, a former National Security Secretary and police commander, told Reuters.

International human rights groups often say Rio police have a history of summary executions. Officials said police killed 983 "suspects" last year and 1,195 in 2003. Last year, some 50 Rio police were killed in the line of duty.

- REUTERS