Police invasion against the drug dealers in Rocinha

I want to describe how is the situation in Rocinha after police invasion.

Let me describe situation in Rio de Janeiro first. In Brazil the homicides doubled since 1980 and looks like a constant problem in country where doesn't exist religious, ethnic and racist conflicts. Almost 50,000 people are killed in Brazil every year.

However,  the situation in Rio de Janeiro is statisticly better. According this document http://mapadaviolencia.org.br/pdf2012/mapa2012_rj.pdf the homicide crime is dropping down in last decade. In year 2000 was in state of Rio de Janeiro 51 homicides per 100,000 habitants and 56.1 in city Rio de Janeiro and its agglomeration. In year 2010 was half on both sides.

Drug dealers are responsible for most homicides. There is no dead bodies in Rio de Janeiro. Who is scared of violence are again middle and upper class. I believe, that you can be robbed in Rio, as the most people said but you can be robbed also in other bigger city.

Rio de Janeiro has approximately 700 shanty towns called favelas. Ten years ago was almost all of them occupied by one of the drug dealing gang. There are 3 biggest gangs in Rio that are occupiing favelas. Probably the biggest and oldest faction is Comando Vermelho (CV), Amigo dos Amigos (ADA) and Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP) which starts a "business" after masacre in prison Bangu where a part of CV splited and killed almost all of remaining command of CV.

Situation after 10 years was different. Politicans felt electoral power because 1/3 of habitant of city is considered to be habitant of favela. Goverment stared huge operation for throwning out dealers from favelas. In these pacified favelas are in charge police militias which are recieving money for protecting habitants against violence and drug gangs. Pacified favela is considered to be a "property" of PMRJ(Rio de Janeiro Police Department) and was distributed to high-ranking police chiefs who has profits of it.

In Rocinha was since 2004 in charge ADA but after November 2011 arrrest of Antônio Francisco Bofim Lopes also called Nem is considered to be pacified. On every corner is a police patrol with submachine guns. And indenpendent teams are patroling becos (small street).


The presence of guns is prety disturbing but you can used to it. Police is checking a lot of people and the worst situation is on night. It's not good to leave you home without identification. Sometimes I can hear gunshots but it's a far away. There is no sign of drug dealers but I can bet that some of the people that I know are.