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The eyewitness

An eyewitness who documented the results of an extensive Brazilian police operation in the Brazilian city has reported how community members came back with badly injured victims of the deceased individuals.

The victims "kept piling up: 25, 30, 35, 40, 45...", Bruno Itan stated. Among them were law enforcement personnel.

A particular victim had been decapitated - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he said. Numerous victims displayed evidence of stab wounds.

Over 120 individuals were killed in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the bloodiest action in the city.

The photographer reported that he initially learned concerning the action early on Tuesday by community members from the Alemão area, who reached out informing him gunfire had erupted.

The reporter went to a local medical facility, where the bodies were being brought.

The photographer stated that the police blocked media personnel from going into the operation zone, where the operation were occurring.

"Law enforcement personnel formed a line and announced: 'Journalists cannot proceed beyond this point'."

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in the community, explained he was able to make his way into the restricted zone, where he continued through the night.

He described that Tuesday night, local residents started looking the hillside which divides the community of Penha and the adjacent Alemão area for loved ones who were unaccounted for after the operation.

Community members living in Penha organized the located casualties in a square - the photographer's images reveal the reaction of the gathered crowd.

"The violence of the situation shook me profoundly: the pain of relatives, mothers fainting, women carrying children, crying, furious relatives," the eyewitness remembered.

The photographer

The official of Rio state stated that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 officers was aimed at halting a gang referred to as Comando Vermelho from expanding its territory.

Initially, the Rio state government claimed that sixty alleged criminals and four police officers" lost their lives during the action.

Authorities later reported that their "preliminary" count suggests that 117 alleged criminals were fatally injured.

Rio's public defender's office, which provides legal assistance to disadvantaged individuals, has estimated the overall count of fatalities at 132.

According to researchers, the gang represents the unique criminal entity which in recent years has been able to expand its territory throughout Rio state.

It is widely considered as a major illegal faction in Brazil, alongside First Capital Command, with a background spanning over five decades.

According to reporter a specialist, who has been covering illegal operations in Rio over many years, the criminal organization "works as a system" with neighborhood bosses joining the organization and becoming "commercial associates".

The criminal group focuses mainly on drug trafficking, additionally trafficking weapons, gold, petroleum products, liquor cigarettes.

Per law enforcement statements, organization members have substantial firearms and police said that while the action was underway, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The state leader of the state, the government representative, labeled organization participants as drug terrorists and described the four police officers killed in the raid as courageous individuals.

Nevertheless, the total of fatalities during the raid has received condemnation from UN human rights officials stating they were "horrified".

In a media appearance the following day, the state leader defended the police force.

"We did not plan to kill anyone. We aimed to arrest them all alive," he declared.

He continued that the situation had escalated as the individuals fought back: "It occurred of the counterattack they carried out and the excessive violence from the gang members."

The state leader additionally stated that the bodies presented by community members in Penha had been "manipulated".

In a post on social media, he asserted that certain victims had been removed of military-style attire he said they had been wearing "to redirect responsibility onto the police".

A law enforcement representative representing security forces further reported that military attire, vests, and weapons" were stripped from the victims and displayed evidence appearing to show a man stripping military attire {off a corpse