Officers run amok

last updated 8 January 2015

Rio de Janeiro

Eleven policemen were arrested this week for a shooting rampage that killed 30 people in Brazil. About eight gunmen burst into a crowded bar in Nova Iguacu near Rio de Janeiro last week, and sprayed patrons and passersby with gunfire. “It was a festival of terror,” said Mayor Lindberg Farias. Investigators immediately suspected that the massacre was the work of rogue police retaliating for the recent arrests of eight tainted cops in a nearby precinct. Police in Rio state kill as many as 1,000 civilians a year. Human rights groups say many are victims of death squads that target gang members and other “undesirables.”