Protests erupt after police raid in Brazil leaves 119 dead and draws accusations of excessive force

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force Wednesday and calls for the Rio’s governor to resign.

Dozens of favelas residents gathered in front of the state’s government headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio's deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.

Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil's Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.

“This was a massacre,” said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.

“Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us,” said activist Rute Sales, 56. Many residents came Penha in Rio's poor, northern zone to the imposing Guanabara Palace on motorbikes.

The toll of 115 suspects and four policemen killed was an increase over what authorities originally said were 60 suspects dead in Tuesday’s raid by about 2,500 police and soldiers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao.

Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, told a news conference that bodies of additional suspects were found in a wooded area where he said they had worn camouflage while battling with security forces. He said local residents had removed clothing and equipment from the bodies, in what would be investigated as evidence tampering.

"These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now many of them appeared wearing underwear or shorts, with no equipment, as if they had come through a portal and changed clothes,” Curi said.

Earlier Wednesday, in the neighborhood of Penha, residents had surrounded many of the bodies — collected in trucks and displayed in a main square — and shouted “massacre" and “justice” before forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the remains.

“They can take them to jail, why kill them like this? Lots of them were alive and calling for help,” resident Elisangela Silva Santos, 50, said during the gathering in Penha. “Yes they’re traffickers, but they’re human.”

The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113 — up from 81 cited previously, Curi said. The state government said some 90 rifles and more than a ton of drugs were seized.

Police and soldiers had launched the raid in helicopters, armored vehicles and on foot, targeting the Red Command gang. They drew gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city on Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas shuttered, a local university canceled classes, and roads were blocked with buses used as barricades.

Many shops remained closed Wednesday morning in Penha, where local activist Raull Santiago said he was part of a team that found about 15 bodies before dawn.

“We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred that is spread - there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre,” Santiago said.

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Castro to provide information about the police operation and scheduled a hearing with the state governor and the heads of the military and civil police next Monday in Rio.

The Senate's commission for human rights said it was asking for clarifications from the Rio state government. Meanwhile, Rio prosecutors requested that Castro provide detailed information about the operation and proof that there was no less harmful means of achieving its objectives.

And the federal public prosecutor's office asked the Forensic Medical Institute to ensure that autopsy reports contain full descriptions and photographic and radiographic documentation of all injuries.

Castro said on Tuesday that Rio was at war against “narco-terrorism,” a term that echoed the Trump administration in its campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America.

On Wednesday, Castro called the operation a “success,” apart from the deaths of the four police officers.

Rio’s state government said that the suspects who had been killed had resisted police.

Rio has been the scene of lethal police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, while in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela.

But the scale and lethality of Tuesday’s operation are unprecedented. Non-governmental organizations and the U.N. human rights body quickly raised concerns over the high number of reported fatalities and called for investigations.

“We fully understand the challenges of having to deal with violent and well-organized groups such as Red Command,” said U.N. Human Rights Spokesperson Marta Hurtado said.

But Brazil must “break this cycle of extreme brutality and ensure that law enforcement operations comply with international standards regarding the use of force,” she said, adding that the body was calling for full-fledged policing reform.

Late on Wednesday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on X that he had instructed the justice minister and director-general of Federal Police to meet Castro for a meeting in Rio.

Brazil cannot accept that organized crime “continues to destroy families, oppress residents, and spread drugs and violence across cities,” he said.

The operation's stated objectives were capturing leaders and limiting the territorial expansion of the Red Command gang, which has increased its control over favelas in recent years.

Gang members allegedly targeted police with at least one drone. Rio de Janeiro’s state government shared a video on X of what appeared to show a drone firing a projectile from the sky.

Gov. Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said Tuesday that Rio was “alone in this war.” He said the federal government should be providing more support to combat crime — in a swipe at the administration of Lula's leftist administration.

His comments were challenged by the Justice Ministry, which said it had responded to requests from Rio’s state government to deploy national forces in the state, renewing their presence 11 times.

Gleisi Hoffmann, the Lula administration’s liaison with the parliament, agreed that more coordinated action was needed but pointed to a recent crackdown on money laundering as an example of the federal government’s action on organized crime.

Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said it was clearly an extremely bloody and violent operation.

“We should reflect on whether this kind of action is compatible with the Democratic Rule of Law that governs us all,” he told journalists on Wednesday.

Criminal gangs have expanded their presence across Brazil in recent years, including in the Amazon rainforest.

Roberto Uchôa, from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety think-tank, said that criminal gangs have strengthened despite these kinds of operations, suggesting that they are inefficient.

“Killing more than 100 people like this won’t help decrease the Red Command’s expansion. The dead will soon be replaced,” Uchôa said.

Forensic workers collect the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

The bodies of a men killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang lie in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

The bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang lie in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Residents surround the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A priest blesses the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

A woman mourns over the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang at the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Residents look at the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang at the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Residents look at the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang at the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A woman mourns beside the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang at the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

Relatives mourn over the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang at the Complexo da Penha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

LONDON (AP) — Britain's Conservative Party, which governed the country from 2010 until it suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat two years ago, was plunged into fresh turmoil Thursday after its leader sacked the man widely seen as her greatest rival for apparently plotting to defect from the party.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in a video and statement on X that she sacked the party's justice spokesperson Robert Jenrick due to “irrefutable evidence that he was plotting in secret to defect" in a way that was “designed to be as damaging as possible” to the party. Badenoch also ejected Jenrick from the party's ranks in Parliament and suspended his party membership.

“The British public are tired of political psychodrama and so am I,” she said. “They saw too much of it in the last government, they’re seeing too much of it in this government. I will not repeat those mistakes.”

Though Badenoch did not specify which party Jenrick was planning to switch to, Nigel Farage, leader of the hard-right Reform UK party, said he had “of course” had conversations with him.

In the past 12 months, the Conservatives have suffered a string of defections to Reform UK, including some former Cabinet ministers.

Farage said in a press briefing in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital, that coincided with Badenoch's statement that, “hand on heart,” he wasn't about to present Jenrick as the latest Conservative to defect to Reform, an upstart, anti-immigration party.

“I’ll give him a ring this afternoon,” he said. “I might even buy him a pint, you never know.”

The Conservatives are fighting not just the Labour government to their left, but Reform UK to the right.

Reform, which only has a handful of lawmakers in the House of Commons, is tipped to make a major breakthrough in an array of elections this May, including those to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, at the expense of both the Conservatives and Labour.

Jenrick, who continued to attract speculation about leadership ambitions despite being beaten in 2024, has appeared more open than Badenoch to the prospect of some sort of deal between the Conservatives and Reform to unite the right in the run-up to next general election, which has to take place by 2029.

Jenrick has yet to respond to the news of his sacking.

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose favorability ratings have fallen sharply since the general election following a series of missteps, questioned why it took Badenoch “so long” to sack Jenrick given all the speculation that he was looking to either challenge her or to defect to Reform.

Badenoch, a small-state, low-tax advocate, has shifted the Conservatives to the right, announcing policies similar to those of U.S. President Donald Trump, including a promise to deport 150,000 unauthorized immigrants a year.

Her poor poll ratings and lackluster performance in Parliament had stirred speculation that she could be ousted long before the next election.

However, she has been making a better impression in Parliament in recent weeks, particularly during her weekly questioning of Starmer, in a way that appears to have cemented her position as leader.

The party is no stranger to turmoil, having gone through six leaders in the space of 10 years, five of them serving as prime minister. Widespread anger at the way the Conservatives were governing Britain led to their defeat at the general election in July 2024, when they lost around two-thirds of their lawmakers, their worst performance since the modern party was created nearly 200 years ago.

Robert Jenrick speaking at a Reform UK press conference in Westminster, London, where it was announced the former Conservative MP has joined Reform UK, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Robert Jenrick with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at a Reform UK press conference in Westminster, London, where it was announced the former Conservative MP has joined Reform UK, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)

Reform Party leader Nigel Farage addresses protesters outside the Iranian embassy, in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Yui Mok/PA via AP)

Kemi Badenoch with Robert Jenrick before being announced as the new Conservative Party leader following the vote by party members at 8 Northumberland Avenue in central London, Nov. 3, 2024. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)