RIO DE JANEIRO – At least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed in a shootout on Thursday during an operation against drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarezinho slum, police said. <\/P>
Suspects tried to escape across rooftops as police entered the slum in armored vehicles and helicopters flew overhead, television images showed. The intense firefight kept residents in their homes. <\/P>
Three policemen were hit and one died of a head wound in the hospital, police said. <\/P>
Bullets fired during the shootout struck a light rail coach and two passengers were hurt by shattered glass from the broken window, the fire brigade said. <\/P>
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It was the deadliest single police operation in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which has suffered for decades from drug violence in its poor neighborhoods known as favelas. <\/P>
“This is the largest number of deaths in a police operation in Rio, surpassing 19 at Complexo do Alem\u00e3o slum in 2007, except we did not lose one of ours in that action,” police chief Ronaldo Oliveira told Reuters. <\/P>
Police said that among the dead in Jacarezinho were leaders of the drug trafficking gang that dominated life in the slum. At least 10 suspects were arrested, they said. <\/P>
Besides drug trafficking, the gang robbed trucks of their cargo and had hijacked commuter trains earlier this year to steal from passengers. <\/P>
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Source: Voice of America<\/P>
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RIO DE JANEIRO – At least 25 people, including a police officer, were killed in a shootout on Thursday during an operation against drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarezinho slum, police said. Suspects tried to escape across rooftops as police en…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n