The casualties continued piling up - photographer recounts fatal Rio police raid

The eyewitness

A reporter who documented the consequences of a massive law enforcement action in the Brazilian city has described how community members brought back mutilated bodies of people who lost their lives.

The bodies "kept coming: the numbers kept rising", Bruno Itan stated. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

One of the bodies had been decapitated - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he explained. Many also had what appeared to be knife injuries.

In excess of 120 victims were fatally injured during the security action on a criminal gang - the most lethal operation in the city.

Bruno Itan stated that he was first alerted about the operation early on Tuesday by residents from the Alemão area, who contacted him alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The photographer made his way to the healthcare center, where the casualties were coming in.

Itan explained that security forces stopped members of the press from going into the operation zone, where the police action were occurring.

"Police officers formed a line and said: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

But Itan, who spent his childhood in the community, explained he succeeded to enter past the security perimeter, where he stayed until dawn.

He described during the night, area inhabitants started looking the mountainous area that borders Penha from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for family members whose whereabouts were unknown since the police raid.

Residents of the Penha neighbourhood organized the located casualties in a square - the documented evidence reveal the response of those present.

"The violence of what occurred shook me deeply: the grief of relatives, women collapsing, women carrying children, weeping, angry family members," the photographer recalled.

The photographer

The governor of Rio state announced that the massive police operation deploying about 2,500 officers was aimed at halting a gang referred to as Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

At first, the Rio state government maintained that "60 suspects along with four officers" were fatally injured in the raid.

Officials subsequently stated that their "preliminary" count suggests that 117 "suspects" were fatally injured.

The legal assistance organization, that gives legal support to low-income residents, has calculated the final tally of people killed as 132.

According to researchers, the gang represents the unique criminal entity that in the past few years has been able to make territorial gains throughout Rio state.

It is widely considered one of the two largest gangs in the country, alongside First Capital Command, and has a history extending half a century.

According to Brazilian journalist Rafael Soares, who has long reported on crime in Rio for years, the criminal organization "operates like a franchise" with local criminal leaders affiliating with the group and acting as "commercial associates".

The gang engages primarily in narcotics distribution, while also dealing in weapons, gold, petroleum products, beverages and tobacco.

Based on official reports, gang members are well armed and police said that during the raid, they faced assaults from explosive-laden drones.

The governor of the region, the government representative, characterized organization participants as "narcoterrorists" and called the law enforcement personnel killed in the raid as courageous individuals.

Nevertheless, the total of people killed during the raid has received condemnation with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights saying it was "shocked".

At a news conference on Wednesday, the state leader justified security actions.

"There was no objective to cause fatalities. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He added that the circumstances worsened due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It occurred of the counterattack they executed and the disproportionate use of force by the illegal group."

The state leader also said that the victims displayed by locals in Penha had been "tampered with".

In a post on social media, he said that some of them had been taken of the camouflage clothing that he stated they possessed "to transfer accusation toward law enforcement".

A police official representing security forces also said that "camouflage clothing, vests, and weapons" had been removed from the casualties and presented video apparently demonstrating a person cutting camouflage clothing {off a corpse