At Least 52 Killed as Attacks Continue on Police in Brazil

A notorious criminal gang unleashed a second wave of attacks Sunday against police, raising the death toll to at least 52 in what one official said was the deadliest assault of its kind in Brazil’s history.

More than 30 related prison rebellions also broke out Sunday, bringing the number of penitentiary revolts across Sao Paulo state to 51 at the peak of the uprising that began Saturday. By late Sunday, rebellions continued at 41 of the state’s 144 prisons, and inmates were holding 229 prison guards hostage.

The inmates have not made any demands nor harmed any of their hostages, said Jorge de Souza, a spokesman for the Sao Paulo Prison Affairs Department.

He said visitors were inside several of the prisons, but “we don’t consider them hostages because they are there to show solidarity with their jailed relatives.”

The apparently coordinated attacks were in response to the transfer of eight imprisoned leaders from the First Capital Command, known by its Portuguese initials, PCC.

Authorities said the transfers were part of an attempt to sever prisoners’ ties to gang members outside prison.

The PCC has launched such attacks before, but the weekend’s “were the most vicious and deadliest attacks on public security forces that have ever taken place in Brazil,” said Enio Lucciola, spokesman for the Sao Paulo State Public Safety Department.

Lucciola said authorities had been prepared for some kind of PCC attack after the transfer, “but we never imagined it would be so big or ferocious.”

The Sao Paulo state government said the PCC carried out at least 100 attacks Friday, Saturday and Sunday that killed at least 35 police officers, the girlfriend of one of them and two bystanders. Fourteen suspected gang members were killed in gun battles with police.

At least 72 people were arrested, “all of them with long criminal records,” Lucciola said.

Officers set up checkpoints and placed barriers in front of many police stations. Television footage showed bullet-riddled police cars and shattered glass at one station. Major streets in Sao Paulo, a city of about 19 million, were virtually empty Sunday morning.

During a 10-day period in November 2003, the PCC attacked more than 50 police stations with machine guns, homemade bombs, shotguns and pistols, killing three officers and injuring 12. Those attacks were aimed at pressuring authorities to improve prison conditions.