News Rio de Janeiro drug shootout death toll rises to 28

[thegreenhand]

Rio de Janeiro drug shootout death toll rises to 28​

Reuters
7 May 2021

“The death toll from a police raid on a drug gang in a poor Rio de Janeiro neighborhood on Thursday has risen to 28, civil police said on Friday, the deadliest operation ever carried out by the security forces in the Brazilian city.”

Rio de Janeiro drug shootout death toll rises to 28

The death toll from a police raid on a drug gang in a poor Rio de Janeiro neighborhood on Thursday has risen to 28, civil police said on Friday, the deadliest operation ever carried out by the security forces in the Brazilian city.

www.reuters.com

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Yeah I was reading about this earlier. Brazil seems really f-ed up, I was reading earlier that the Rio police have averaged shooting 5 people dead / day since the year began? That's crazy...also I heard somewhere that more Brazilian police die per year than American soldiers during the height of the Iraq insurgency lol. Some of the videos I've seen in the past of the police literally spraying crowded neighborhoods with gunfire are insane (there was one in particular of a car being chased by a helicopter gunship that stood out). Seems like a place like Mexico where a heavily-stratified/very unequal class society mixed with strong institutional corruption and a legacy of political authoritarianism just creates a total shitshow

Dunno if anyone is interested but there's a fascinating show about Brazil (that I first learned about on this website actually) called "Killer Ratings", about the Brazilian city of Manaus and the corruption/drug trade/underworld there. At the end of the series...well, I won't spoil it but it has quite the gruesome conclusion, involving

Spoiler

a drug gang raiding the prison where the main eyewitness for the state's case (involving the main suspect of "Killer Ratings") is behind held, and hacks him and about 50 other people to death!

 

[thegreenhand]

part of me wants to chalk all this up to the drug war but idk how much of it is that vs. just plain corruption and human rights abuses

 

[Jabberwocky]

part of me wants to chalk all this up to the drug war but idk how much of it is that vs. just plain corruption and human rights abuses

Same like the Phillipines where the President is egging on the cops to just shoot drug dealers AND users and thousands have been killed. Nothing to drugs with drugs, he’s just scapegoating drug users to burnish his tough guy law and order image.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Yeah he and Bolsanaro both fetishize the Cold War dictatorships in their countries...in the former's case, the Marcos dictatorship, in the latter's case the military dictatorship which ruled from 1964 to the mid-80s. Typical ignorant demagoguery. There's definitely a legacy of authoritarianism in a lot of these countries

 

[Burnt Offerings]

In South America it just seems like drugs are a means to an end for all sides, though. The right-wing death squads, the left-wing revolutionary armies...the authorities, the criminals...doesn't matter, they're all ready to sell cocaine if it makes 'em a quick buck lol. Whereas in east Asia it seems like some of these folks may have actually bought into the whole anti-drug ideology/delusion. The predominant narrative from Latin/South America regarding the drug issue seems to be one of skepticism (gee I wonder why)

 

[Jabberwocky]

In South America it just seems like drugs are a means to an end for all sides, though. The right-wing death squads, the left-wing revolutionary armies...the authorities, the criminals...doesn't matter, they're all ready to sell cocaine if it makes 'em a quick buck lol. Whereas in east Asia it seems like some of these folks may have actually bought into the whole anti-drug ideology/delusion. The predominant narrative from Latin/South America regarding the drug issue seems to be one of skepticism (gee I wonder why)

That’s right. If the US was actually concerned with democracy, freedom, and economic development in South America it would legalise and regulate drugs in the US.

 

[thegreenhand]

If the US was actually concerned with democracy, freedom, and economic development in South America it would legalise and regulate drugs in the US.

Unfortunately that “if” will not come true for a long time

 

[4meSM]

Same like the Phillipines where the President is egging on the cops to just shoot drug dealers AND users and thousands have been killed. Nothing to drugs with drugs, he’s just scapegoating drug users to burnish his tough guy law and order image.

Yeah that is insane... It has been going on for a few years hasn't it? I don't really know the full extent of the situation though.
I have a friend who lives in the Philippines, apparently he's a weed dealer now. I was surprised he was willing to risk his life, but he told me that cops there are really corrupt so he could just bribe them if he ever got caught... He's a foreigner too, don't know if that makes it better or worse.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Yeah that is insane... It has been going on for a few years hasn't it? I don't really know the full extent of the situation though.
I have a friend who lives in the Philippines, apparently he's a weed dealer now. I was surprised he was willing to risk his life, but he told me that cops there are really corrupt so he could just bribe them if he ever got caught... He's a foreigner too, don't know if that makes it better or worse.

He became President in 2016 so that’s when it went national but he ran death squads as early as 1998 when he became mayor of Davao. I read somewhere that he had over 1600 people killed when he was mayor to cement his family’s business and political interests.

Apparently the drugs trade is a politically protected industry so the killings are selective only some people on the wrong side. You can still score drugs pretty easily.

I don’t think they’d illegally kill a foreigner. They wouldn’t want the international heat on human rights starting up again. But he c

 

[LordOfThisWorld]

Those shanty towns in Brazil or Flavelas, as the native people their call them, rule their area, common cops will not go in there, usually when something happens and it gets really bad they have to send in the Federal police backed up by the Military, I have a friend who is Brazilian and that's what he told me.

 

[G_Chem]

Yea a good friend of mine in HS was a foreign exchange student from Brazil.

I remember seeing him in study hall, looked like an Asian kid but dressed very unlike one lol. In his broken English I quickly found out he liked bud so we got along great. I introduced him to mushrooms which he later told me was pivotal for him.

Anyways this dude was the nicest guy but he had the craziest stories that just didn’t seem real coming from his chill demeanor. He has been standing so close to people when they were shot blood splattered up on to him.

His first time trying LSD he told me this story, “so then me and my friend went and fucked this prostitute in, oh how do you say?... Butthole.” The shit he’d say was next level funny as fuck sometimes.

But as I said he was just this super chill laid back guy. Until one night we were at a party and some older guys started talking shit to us telling us to leave. As we were going one of the guys got too in his face and in the smoothest quickest moves I’ve ever seen hit him once so hard he dropped and as he was on the ground he knees him in the face.

There was no emotion, no getting mad, it just was what it was. Then he casually got in the car as we were going nuts, the guy with blood pouring out of his face.

That’s what I think of when I think Brazilian people. The most first world 3rd country IMO with US not far behind at times.

Another thing that didn’t add up was his finances, this kid somehow had like thousands of dollars in an account he got set up there. He just didn’t seem like your typical rich kid, and the money was so disposable. Couldn’t figure that out either...

Years later he got ahold of me on FB and told me how much it meant that I went out of my way to make him feel welcome, especially where we lived. At the village he was living they were really beginning to use DMT which he was telling me about. Good dude that I hope to see again one day.

-GC

 

[4meSM]

Apparently the drugs trade is a politically protected industry so the killings are selective only some people on the wrong side. You can still score drugs pretty easily.

I don’t think they’d illegally kill a foreigner. They wouldn’t want the international heat on human rights starting up again.

I've heard similar things about the drug trade there.

Killing a foreigner would be too costly but I could easily see them putting you in jail for life, specially if you piss off the wrong people.
The jails there don't seem too pleasant from what I've seen.

Spoiler: Not exactly a 5 star hotel

 

[LordOfThisWorld]

Yea a good friend of mine in HS was a foreign exchange student from Brazil.

I remember seeing him in study hall, looked like an Asian kid but dressed very unlike one lol. In his broken English I quickly found out he liked bud so we got along great. I introduced him to mushrooms which he later told me was pivotal for him.

Anyways this dude was the nicest guy but he had the craziest stories that just didn’t seem real coming from his chill demeanor. He has been standing so close to people when they were shot blood splattered up on to him.

His first time trying LSD he told me this story, “so then me and my friend went and fucked this prostitute in, oh how do you say?... Butthole.” The shit he’d say was next level funny as fuck sometimes.

But as I said he was just this super chill laid back guy. Until one night we were at a party and some older guys started talking shit to us telling us to leave. As we were going one of the guys got too in his face and in the smoothest quickest moves I’ve ever seen hit him once so hard he dropped and as he was on the ground he knees him in the face.

There was no emotion, no getting mad, it just was what it was. Then he casually got in the car as we were going nuts, the guy with blood pouring out of his face.

That’s what I think of when I think Brazilian people. The most first world 3rd country IMO with US not far behind at times.

Another thing that didn’t add up was his finances, this kid somehow had like thousands of dollars in an account he got set up there. He just didn’t seem like your typical rich kid, and the money was so disposable. Couldn’t figure that out either...

Years later he got ahold of me on FB and told me how much it meant that I went out of my way to make him feel welcome, especially where we lived. At the village he was living they were really beginning to use DMT which he was telling me about. Good dude that I hope to see again one day.

-GC

That's what they call Capoeira aka Brazilian Ju Jitsu, that is really an exaggeration that America is not to far behind Brazil in becoming a 3rd world country.

 

[TripSitterNZ]

I have a friend from brazil aswell and soon as he landed here he had mad connections for all drugs somehow. but now he is back in brazil and every brazilin women he knew was smoking hot and they all were very very nice people to talk to and chill with smoking joints. The women are so friendly and kind and down to earth and the dudes are chill and good people always talked to me when i saw them around even if only knew their friend. Some parts of brazil are pretty rich but still alot of murders i remember them telling me something about how one part of the country could of been very well off but the government fucked it all up.

atelier3 the police in the phillpenes killed a british citizen who was high up there as a model or something and caused outrage but she was dealing and using drugs aswell. But the president mainly targets poor people or anybody who is not aligned with him he is acutally a drug lord and only did to so everybody has to get drugs from him instead.

 

[LordOfThisWorld]

I have a friend from brazil aswell and soon as he landed here he had mad connections for all drugs somehow. but now he is back in brazil and every brazilin women he knew was smoking hot and they all were very very nice people to talk to and chill with smoking joints. The women are so friendly and kind and down to earth and the dudes are chill and good people always talked to me when i saw them around even if only knew their friend. Some parts of brazil are pretty rich but still alot of murders i remember them telling me something about how one part of the country could of been very well off but the government fucked it all up.

atelier3 the police in the phillpenes killed a british citizen who was high up there as a model or something and caused outrage but she was dealing and using drugs aswell. But the president mainly targets poor people or anybody who is not aligned with him he is acutally a drug lord and only did to so everybody has to get drugs from him instead.

I knew a few Brazilians too, nice people who will give you the shirt off their back, and did you ever have their food? Man delicious, they have a skewered barbecue called Rodizio and Dobrada which is like a black bean stew with cured meats stewed in with the beans. Delicious stuff.

I hope conditions get better there, from what I hear the government is corrupt there, and only the wealthy do well, which is a shame.

 

[TripSitterNZ]

my friend owns a bar over there with his mates now but covid has fucked them hard its sad. Maybe one day ill be able to over there. He use to do heaps of acid smoke weed do mdma. He told me the best acid he ever had was in brazil.