Rocinha Drug Traffickers Attack UPP in Another Long Gun Battle since Occupation

02/17/2014 - 09h17

Leaning on a police car shot eight times by a machinegun, a UPP (Pacifying Police Unit) officer in Rocinha summarized a gun battle that lasted more than eight hours in the slum in Rio's south zone.

"It's a miracle we're alive," he said about the biggest offensive led by drug traffickers since the UPP occupied the slum in September 2012.

As of 3:30 am, drug traffickers cornered police officers, attacked four UPP bases in different places in the slum and shot up police cars. They later left the community blackouted and set fire to objects at the entrances of the Zuzu Angel tunnel, which connects the neighborhoods of Gávea and São Conrado.

An hour after the gun battle began at the lower part of Rocinha, the clashes spread to different areas of the slum. Two people were injured, one of them in the head and two State Police officers also were shot. Despite the violent attack, only one man was arrested.

The battle was so intense that the tunnel was closed and traffic was interrupted between 4:06 and 6:48 am.

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Around 11 am, when 150 officers from various stations reinforced the troops in the slum, the head of the UPPs, Colonel Frederico Caldas, and Major Pricilla Azevedo, the head of the Rocinha UPP units, were injured after several officers were the target of gunshots.

Local residents and police officers say Col. Caldas was injured by shrapnel of a grenade. The State Police said that didn't happen and that Caldas "fell and had light excoriations. He received medical treatment and is under observation."

Major Azevedo injured her wrist on the same occasion. Both were taken to the corporation's hospital. In the afternoon, Azevedo returned to Rocinha.

The police stations weren't the traffickers' only target. Rocinha's UPA (Emergency Unit) was targeted some 20 times. The doctor and nurses on duty had to duck to avoid the shots.

At least five of the 79 cameras that monitor the slum and electric power transformers were hit. Technicians of Light, Rio's electric energy company, claimed there was "a lack of safety" to go to Rocinha and only entered after 9:30 am.

	Reprodução/GloboNews
	On Sunday the battle was so intense that the tunnel was closed and traffic was interrupted between 4:06 and 6:48 am

The police officers that observed the cameras still working installed in the slum said they saw 25 men with machineguns walking the alleys and shooting against the cameras.

Rio's Security Secretary José Mariano Beltrame said that "the state will not retreat in the face of criminal groups' attempts to return to the place they dominated for decades."

Criminals' resistance against the UPPs has increased since last year.

Since the disappearance of assistant bricklayer Amarildo de Souza in July 2013, drug traffickers have tried to take advantage of people's lack of confidence in the UPP State Police to regain control of Rocinha.

The Public Prosecutor's Office accused 25 police officers for the disappearance of Amarildo de Souza.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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