House Where 14-Year-Old Boy Was Killed Has Around 70 Bullet Holes

The Holes mark walls, windows and TV, according to people who went to the property in São Gonçalo (RJ)

Rio de Janeiro

The house where João Pedro Matos Pinto, 14, played with his cousins before being killed during a police operation on Monday afternoon (18) today has about 70 marks of gunshots.

The holes appear on several walls, a window, and the television in the property's living room. The property belongs to the teenager's aunt and family reunited there on weekends and during the quarantine.

"There are 71 marks of shots, which I counted myself," said Jack Silva, president of the neighborhood association. "It was a lot of shooting. And there was also a piece of grenade or gas bomb they threw."

Nadilton da Costa takes pictures of bullet holes in the walls of the house where his teenage nephew Joao Pedro Pinto, 14, was shot dead during a police operation against drug dealers, in Salgueiro slum in Sao Goncalo, near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 19, 2020. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes - REUTERS

João Luis Silva, a social articulator of the NGO Rio de Paz, reported the same number. "I counted 72 marks, and I only counted from the outside in. There is an object in the yard that I told them not to move, which looks like a grenade pin," said Luis Silva, who was called by his relatives to go to the house the next day

The property is on Itaoca Island, in the Complexo do Salgueiro, in São Gonçalo, metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro. That afternoon, there was a major Federal Police operation supported mainly by the Core (Special Resources Coordination) of the Civil Police.

Translated by Kiratiana Freelon

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