Brazil Activists Say Prison Raid Was a Massacre

Human rights activists and inmates’ relatives accused police and riot troops Sunday of committing a massacre when they stormed Carandiru Prison on Friday to put down an uprising.

“There is no doubt that it was a massacre,” said Father William Sheehan, a prison chaplain who spent the weekend in the prison after the violence Friday.

“Many were shot dead for no reason at all. Some were killed by dogs. The number of dead will most likely be higher than the 111 authorities claim.”

Police have denied such accusations, saying 111 prisoners were killed mainly by other inmates when a gang fight turned into a riot at the overcrowded complex.

According to Sao Paulo’s state security director, Pedro Franco de Campo, more than 300 riot troops with shotguns, pistols and machine guns raided the five-story Cell Block 9 in the squalid prison, Latin America’s largest.

They quelled the riot in less than three hours, he said.

“I refuse to accept the possibility that a massacre was committed because our philosophy is always to act on the defensive,” said Sao Paulo Police Chief Hermes Cruz.

But Sheehan, a native of Brockton, Mass., who has worked in Brazil for 47 years, said, “All those that died were killed by police.”

Flavio Augusto Saraiva Straus, of the Sao Paulo Bar Assn.’s human rights commission, also said police “massacred the prisoners.”

“It’s all part of state government’s official policy of ‘shoot first and ask questions later.’ Police do this on the streets and in the prisons,” he said.

The prison, which holds 7,500 inmates but was built to hold only 4,000, has long been criticized by human rights groups.

Relatives returning from visits with inmates Sunday recounted stories of mass executions. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution against prisoners.