HomeNewsBriefStriking Bahia Military Police Suspected of 'Exterminations'
BRIEF

Striking Bahia Military Police Suspected of 'Exterminations'

BRAZIL / 14 FEB 2012 BY CHRISTOPHER LOOFT EN

A high-ranking police official in Brazil has said that 25 to 30 of the murders that took place in the city of Salvador during a military police strike may have been committed by striking officers.

O Globo reports that Arthur Gallas, director of the Bahia Homicide Department, said that some 45 of the 187 murders that took place during the strike had characteristics of "executions," with the victims handcuffed or bound and shot in the head.

The announcement follows the end of the police's strike in Bahia and of a separate strike in Rio, both over demands for higher wages.

InSight Crime Analysis

If some of the execution-style murders that took place during Bahia's police strike were committed by police, this would point to police involvement in paramilitary forces known as militias. This phenomenon is well-established in Rio de Janeiro, where militia groups made up of current and former security officials control entire neighborhoods. According to the Tribuna da Bahia, Salvador's police deny reports of militia activity.

Brazilian federal authorities launched an investigation into broadening networks of militias, including in Bahia, last year. Between reports of extortion by police-staffed militias and hints that police may be behind some of Bahia's murders, it may take more than a $350 a month pay raise to tackle Salvador's crime problem. A recent study showed a 370 percent increase in homicide in the city from 2000 to 2010.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 26 JUL 2022

Indigenous communities in Brazil are using drones to fight deforestation and the frequent assaults of loggers on their lands.

AYOTZINAPA / 6 OCT 2022

Mexico's army is being given more public security responsibilities, despite its human rights abuses.

ARMS TRAFFICKING / 9 SEP 2022

Brazil's border town of Corumbá is a well-known smuggling route from Bolivia. This is unlikely to change soon.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…