Reuters AlertNet Lite - High-profile Rio cop tied to vigilante group slain

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High-profile Rio cop tied to vigilante group slain

23 Feb 2007 17:43:52 GMT
Source: Reuters

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Assailants pumped 40 bullets into the car of a decorated police officer in Rio de Janeiro, killing him just weeks after he was dismissed from a senior job on suspicions he led a vigilante group, police said on Friday.

Violence has intensified in the crime-plagued Brazilian city since December after illegal vigilante groups, formed by off-duty policemen, soldiers and firefighters, took control of dozens of the city's teeming slums from drug gangs.

"Judging by the way he was killed, the characteristics are those of an execution," a police inspector involved in the investigation said. The motives were not clear yet.

Felix Tostes, 49, was an aide to Rio's police chief until January. He was found dead in his luxury off-road vehicle on Thursday night in Rio's beachside Recreio neighborhood. A woman who was passing by during the attack was wounded in the leg.

Last September, Tostes was awarded an award for exemplary police service.

But in January, Tostes was accused of directing a vigilante group controlling the Rio das Pedras slum.

The militia groups charge slum residents and shopkeepers protection fees. They also control public transport and illegal electricity connections in the shantytowns.

Rio de Janeiro Gov. Sergio Cabral, who took office in January, has said he will not tolerate militias, which he likened to illegal paramilitary groups in Colombia.

He called in hundreds of troopers from the National Public Security Force to help quell the violence before Rio's Carnival celebrations, which ended on Wednesday without major incidents, and the Pan-American Games in July.

Rights groups say police often help militias in clashes with drug gangs rather than act against both sides.

Such clashes have killed around 20 people so far this month, while a wave of gang violence at the end of December, apparently in retaliation for police support of the militias, killed 19 people in one day.

Rio has a murder rate of around 40 per 100,000 people a year -- one of the highest in Latin America.

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Last updated:Fri Feb 23 17:45:05 2007