At Least 56 Inmates Killed in Prison Riot in Northern Brazil

[misskit]

RIO DE JANEIRO —
Fighting among inmates touched off a riot at a prison in the northern state of Amazonas, leaving at least 56 dead, including several who were beheaded or dismembered in the worst bloodshed at a Brazilian prison since 1992.

Authorities said the riot apparently grew out of a fight between two of the country's biggest crime gangs over control of prisons and drug routes in northern Brazil. Amazonas authorities initially reported 60 dead, but Monday afternoon the state public security secretary's office reduced that figure to 56.

State public security secretary Sergio Fontes said some inmates escaped from the Anisio Jobim Penitentiary Complex in Manaus during the riot, but he did not say how many. He said 40 had been recaptured.

There were 1,224 inmates in the prison, which was built to hold 592, Fontes said. The prison is run by a private company that is paid according to the number of inmates.

Twelve prison guards were held hostage by the inmates, though none was wounded during the riot that began Sunday afternoon and ended Monday morning.

“This is the biggest prison massacre in our state's history,” Fontes said at a news conference. “What happened here is another chapter of the war that narcos are waging on this country and it shows that this problem cannot be tackled only by state governments.”

Fontes confirmed that many of the dead had been beheaded. Judge Luis Carlos Valois, who negotiated the end of the riot with inmates, said he saw many bodies that had been quartered.

“I never saw anything like that in my life. All those bodies, the blood,” Valois wrote on Facebook.

It was the largest death toll during a Brazilian prison riot since the killing of 111 inmates by police officers in the Carandiru penitentiary in Sao Paulo in 1992. Police said they acted in self-defense then.

Two other prisons in Manaus also reported riots Monday. At one, 87 prisoners escaped, including an inmate who posted a picture of himself on Facebook as he left. Amazonas police were investigating whether there was a link between the violence at the three prisons.

By evening, Amazonas state police said the situation was stable in all three prisons.

Fontes said the inmates at Anisio Jobim made few demands to end the riot, saying that hinted at a killing spree organized by members of a local gang, the Family of the North, against those of the First Command of the Capital that is based in Sao Paulo.

The secretary said officers found a hole in a prison wall through which weapons entered the building. A policeman was wounded in exchange of gunfire with the inmates. Several firearms were found when police searched the prison after the riot.

Jose Vicente da Silva, a former national public security secretary, said the incidents in Manaus were a result of Brazil's severe recession and poor management of the prison system.

“Since 2014 homicides in prisons of Amazonas are double the national average, and last year they cut their public security budget by 50 percent due to austerity measures. This incident is a repetition in a bigger scale,” da Silva told The Associated Press. “Every year 500 inmates die in Brazilian prisons. With the current economic crisis and the budget cuts, the gangs get even bolder.”

The First Command, nationally known as PCC, is the most powerful drug and prison gang in Brazil and it has been trying to extend its reach to northern prisons dominated by the Family of the North. To counter, Family of the North associated with the Red Commando of Rio de Janeiro, the second biggest crime gang in Brazil.

Valois said that during the negotiations at Anisio Jobim, inmates asked only “that we did not transfer them, made sure they were not attacked and kept their visitation” rights.

The riot ended after the inmates freed the last of the 12 prison staffers they had held hostage, Valois said.

At Least 56 Inmates Killed in Prison Riot in Northern Brazil

[Cold Pizza]

RIO DE JANEIRO —
Fighting among inmates touched off a riot at a prison in the northern state of Amazonas, leaving at least 56 dead, including several who were beheaded or dismembered in the worst bloodshed at a Brazilian prison since 1992.

Some rough puppies in there.

[Lantern]

^^ Not as many as before the riot.

[misskit]

Brazil Prison Riot, a ‘Butchery Foretold,' Sparks Fear of More Killings



SAO PAULO —
The killing of 56 inmates by fellow prisoners in Brazil's deadliest jail uprising in decades was a “butchery foretold” by escalating turf wars between drug gangs that threatens to plunge a chaotic penitentiary system deeper into violence.

Prior to this week's massacre of members of the First Capital Command (PCC) in the Anisio Jobim penitentiary in the jungle city of Manaus, security experts warned for months about intensifying clashes in prisons between Brazil's two most powerful drug gangs — the Sao Paulo-based PCC and the Red Command, based in Rio de Janeiro.

Now they fear the feud will escalate in prisons and on the streets of the South American nation of 207 million people. Rio, Brazil's most popular tourist destination, is particularly vulnerable, along with major cities in the north and northeast, the experts say.

“This situation is tense, very ripe for new tragedies,” said Camila Dias, a sociologist at the Federal University of ABC in Sao Paulo, who is an expert on Brazil's prison system and author of a book on the PCC. "This was a butchery foretold."

Uneasy working relationship

For more than two decades, the PCC and Red Command maintained an uneasy working relationship to ensure a steady flow of marijuana, cocaine and guns over Brazil's porous borders and into its cities.

But in June the partnership ended with the killing of Jorge Rafaat Toumani, a powerful Brazilian drug lord based in Paraguay who controlled trafficking routes along Brazil's southeastern border.

While Toumani was not publicly affiliated to one group or another, and details of his death remain murky, Paraguayan officials believe he was killed at the PCC's behest so it could seize his lucrative trafficking routes.

What is clear, security experts say, is that the PCC has taken control of Toumani's former domain. As a result, relations between the PCC and Red Command fell apart.

Gangs clash in three prisons

Communications between the factions' leaders obtained by police and leaked in October, revealed a race to become Brazil's dominant gang. That same month, clashes between gang members in three prisons elsewhere in Brazil's Amazon left 22 dead.

Control of the drug gangs' turf has been increasingly divided in recent months. That has left the Red Command weaker and allowed the PCC — powered by proceeds from their base in Sao Paulo, Brazil's richest city — to encroach on their turf in Rio.

Brazilian intelligence services say that in response, the Red Command is strengthening ties with smaller groups elsewhere, like the North Family gang that carried out the slaughter of PCC members in the Manaus prison this week.

More gang fights feared

Few now expect the PCC to turn the other cheek after dozens of its members were killed, including many who were decapitated. Videos of the slaughter have spread widely on social media.

“Within the criminal code of conduct, an act like what we saw in the Manaus prison will never go unanswered,” said Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo.

He predicts gang battles in prisons across Brazil and on the streets of northern cities and Rio.

“The civilian population will be at the mercy of this coming war,” he said.

Gang leaders transferred

Brazil's justice minister, Alexandre Moraes, and other government security officials have played down such fears, saying they are transferring imprisoned drug gang leaders to maximum security jails, where they will remain in isolation.

In theory this will stop them from handing down orders to underlings, but in the past isolated gang leaders have still managed to retain control over their networks.

Whether run by the state, or privately operated facilities like the one in Manaus, most Brazilian prisons lack resources — which allows prisoners to easily take control of them and carry out massacres like the one seen this week. Horrific conditions and abuses are well documented.

There are 622,000 inmates in Brazil's prison population, ranking only behind the United States, China and Russia, according to the University of London's Institute for Criminal Policy Research.

Tough numbers

Poor financing and administration mean that even in Sao Paulo, Brazil's wealthiest state, a single guard oversees 300 to 400 prisoners in some prisons, said Dias, the sociologist. “When the prisoners want to have an uprising, they have an uprising,” she added.

The Justice Ministry did not respond to requests for comment, but just last week the federal government announced it was immediately freeing 1.2 billion reais ($372.50 million) in funding for states to improve or build jails.

Sergio Fontes, the top security official in Amazonas state, where Manaus is located, insists the state government has not lost control of the penitentiary system.

Many public security experts disagree. They argue that the prisons mirror an overall lack of security in a country where authorities have long tolerated high homicide rates.

Brazil Prison Riot, a ?Butchery Foretold,' Sparks Fear of More Killings

[broach clasp]

same happened in new mexico a few years back. very ugly.

[misskit]

Brazil Gang Kills 33, Many Hacked to Death, as Prison Violence Explodes

Jailed members of Brazil's most powerful drug gang killed 33 inmates at a penitentiary Friday, decapitating and cutting out the hearts of most of them, in revenge for a separate prison massacre that left 56 dead this week.

The massacre in the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima carried out by members of the First Capital Command (PCC) gang sparked concerns that months of violence between criminal groups controlling Brazil's prisons was spiraling out of control.

The PCC itself was targeted Sunday in neighboring Amazonas state in Brazil's worst prison slaughter in more than two decades. The riot ended Monday morning.

In Friday’s attack, a cellphone video that circulated widely on social media showed self-described PCC members hacking away at bodies littering an outdoor patio inside the prison.

"You killed our brothers, didn't you? Look here, look what is going to happen you! This is revenge for what you did to our brothers," a PCC member is heard saying on the video as dozens of bodies lie in thick pools of blood.

One victim, bare-chested and wearing sky-blue surfer shorts, began to move on the ground. The inmate taking the video calls out to fellow gang members "We've got a live one!" before another gang member rushes over and cuts off the victim's head with a white-handled barbecue knife.

State officials said the riot in Roraima's largest prison was brought under control by elite police forces. Violence between rival drug gangs there already had led to 10 deaths in October.

Roraima's top security official, Uziel de Castro, blamed Friday's violence at the state-run prison on the PCC. He later added that it was believed most of the inmates killed Friday were not members of the group responsible for this week's attack on the PCC in Amazonas and indeed had no gang affiliations.

Justice Minister Alexandre Moraes insisted that the government had control over Brazil's prison system — the fourth-largest in the world and home to more than 620,000 inmates.

Security experts had predicted more violence in Brazil's gang-controlled penitentiaries in the wake of the Monday massacre.

"It's getting really ugly. This situation is clearly snowballing and there is nothing the government can do to stop the violence in the short term," said Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo.

"We are paying the price for 50 years of total neglect of the penitentiary system."


Uneasy alliance

In Monday's uprising, PCC members were attacked by the North Family drug faction, which controls the Anisio Jobim penitentiary in Amazonas, according to officials. North Family is believed to dominate cocaine traffic in Amazonas from Colombia and Peru, according to authorities.

The group is allied with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil's second most powerful faction after PCC.

For more than two decades, PCC and Red Command maintained an uneasy alliance, ensuring that a steady flow of drugs and guns flowed across Brazil's long jungle border.

But about six months ago PCC and Red Command split, as PCC moved to take control of lucrative drug routes across the border with Paraguay and become Brazil's dominant gang.

Experts say PCC also has been moving to infiltrate areas in Red Command's home base of Rio de Janeiro, further stoking a turf war that threatens to spill onto the streets of Brazil's biggest cities.

Since the split, Red Command has allied itself with smaller regional gangs to confront PCC, primarily in the north and northeast of Brazil, where prison violence boiled over this week.

Alcadipani, the public security expert, said that Brazil's penitentiary system has been "self-regulated" by the gangs and that mass killings were rare until recent months because of a truce between the country's biggest criminal factions.

"But we see that as soon as we have a gang war, these killings are inevitably going to happen because the state has no control over the prisons," said Alcadipani.

Brazil Gang Kills 33, Many Hacked to Death, as Prison Violence Explodes

[taxexile]

surely the extermination of gang members is just what the country needs.

cant see what all the fuss is about.

[Mr Earl]

Yet another, "War on Drugs" success stories.

Richard Nixon would be proud!

[misskit]

Police Enter Latest Brazil Prison to See Inmates Massacred

RIO DE JANEIRO —
Police in Brazil have entered two prisons in the country's northern state of Rio Grande do Norte where a riot left at least 10 inmates dead on Saturday, authorities said Sunday.

A statement released by the office in charge of state penitentiaries said the rebellion started Saturday afternoon in the Alcacuz and Rogerio Coutinho detention facilities, located next to each other outside the city of Natal.

Police entered the prisons on Sunday morning, according to the statement.

The riot erupted from fighting between rival gangs and was the latest in a series of massacres in the South America country's penitentiaries that have killed more than 100.

Authorities have said they expect the death toll from Saturday's rebellion to rise.

The Alcacuz facility should house 620 inmates but has 1,083.

The last rebellion in Alcacuz prison was in November 2015, when a tunnel was discovered in one pavilion. The facility should house 620 inmates but has 1,083.

The recent outbreak of prison violence in Brazil began on Jan. 1-2, when 56 inmates were killed in the northern state of Amazonas. Authorities said the Family of the North gang targeted members of Brazil's most powerful criminal gang, First Command, in a clash over control of drug-trafficking routes in northern states. Many of the dead were beheaded and dismembered.

Then on Jan. 6, in the neighboring state of Roraima, 33 prisoners were killed, many with their hearts and intestines ripped out.

Experts say First Command, known by the Portuguese acronym PCC, is exploiting overcrowding and squalid conditions in the Brazil's penitentiaries to expand its reach across the national prison system. The gang runs drug-trafficking operations both inside and outside prisons even though many of its leaders are in maximum security penitentiaries in Sao Paulo state.

Police Enter Latest Brazil Prison to See Inmates Massacred