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Rio de Janeiro homicide division to investigate 'resistance killings' by cops

Police officials in Brazil have been under fire by human rights groups for classifying what they believe are public executions as "resistance killings."

By Alexandra Gratereaux
Police and military patrol Maracana Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on July 13, 2007. File Photo by UPI /Heinz Ruckemann.
Police and military patrol Maracana Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on July 13, 2007. File Photo by UPI /Heinz Ruckemann. | License Photo

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The police department in Rio de Janeiro has launched an investigation into so-called "resistance killings" committed by officers who allege victims have died in shootouts while resisting arrest.

Police officials in Brazil have recently been under fire by human rights watch groups for classifying what they believe are public executions as "resistance killings." In 2014, there were 582 deaths labeled as "resistance killings," a whopping 40 percent spike in deaths over the previous year.

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Fernando Veloso, who runs the police department in Rio, said in a statement on Thursday that the homicide division will now oversee "resistance killings" instead of the local precincts. The homicide department will also handle death threats made against reporters, public officials and judges. The new course in overseeing "resistance killings" comes after the police department dismissed a police chief whose officers were involved in the shooting of 15-year-old Alan de Souza Lima in the Palmeirinha favela.

Veloso said Lima and his friend, 19-year-old Chauan Jambre Cezario, were shot "during a confrontation with police" in which the officers involved said the teens were carrying two guns. Cezario was shot in the chest but survived. Since the incident, nine officers have been suspended from the police department.

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Despite the officers' report, new cell phone video footage shows two teens and a third adolescent riding their bicycles and playing with the phone when suddenly they take off running. Soon after shots are heard. The phone, which kept recording the incident, shows Lima hurt and Cezario praying for his friend.

This is not the first time Brazilian police officials have been criticized for their violent tactics. According to a Human Rights Watch report in 2009, police in Brazil's two largest cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo were responsible for 1,000 unnecessary killings each year.

The United Nations said in a 2008 report that the Brazilian police department was responsible for the majority of the 48,000 deaths the previous year.

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