| Heavily EFL to the handwringing stuff... |
The body count grew in South America's largest city Wednesday as police -- who lost 41 comrades in gang attacks -- killed 22 more suspected criminals. Authorities said little about the latest deaths, generating criticism from rights groups. Human rights activists said they feared innocent people may have been hurt in the strikes by police enraged by a notorious gang's attacks on officers on the streets, at their stations, in their homes and at after work hangouts. The latest deaths boosted the overall death toll to 156 since a wave of violence enveloped Sao Paulo last Friday, and came after officers shot 33 presumed gang members dead only a day earlier. | I'm sure they were all properly documented cases of "crossfire" |
"It's likely that the police are taking advantage of the general public outrage about the heinous crimes committed by the PCC to take brutal action against suspects," said James Cavallaro, a Harvard Law School professor who is also vice president of Rio de Janeiro's Global Justice Center.
Brazilian lawmakers decided to vote later this week on 30 measures to beef up security and reduce the influence of gang leaders who maintain control from behind bars. The bills would let authorities keep gang leaders in solitary confinement for as long as two years -- up from the current one year. It would also fund a nationwide prison intelligence agency and would require cellular telephone service providers to block cell phone signals inside prisons. Gang leaders reportedly used smuggled cell phones from prison to order the attacks.
But President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government said Congress should not rush into legislation. He said Brazil didn't spend enough on education from the 1960's through the 1990's, condemning men now in their 20's and 30's to lives of crime instead of giving them a future. He said he prefers to spend more on schools than on prisons. "Either we give hope to these youths or organized crime will do it for us. I prefer that people work, earning their pay day to day with their sweat to win this battle against organized crime."