It was around 5 am when university student Maria Silva (not her real name) heard the first shots. It could be just another day starting in Complexo da Penha, a group of favelas neighboring Complexo do Alemão, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. But it was about something different.
It was the beginning of the operation that mobilized 2,500 civil and military police with the aim of combating Comando Vermelho (CV), the largest group of drug traffickers in the State, which controls most of the city’s favelas. The main target was Edgard Alves de Andrade, “Doca”, leader of the group. The action, almost all of it in the forest surrounding the favela, left 121 people dead as of Wednesday, including four police officers, a number that was confirmed by the Rio de Janeiro authorities. The number of fatalities exceeds that of the Carandiru prison massacre (111), in 1992, until now the largest in the history of Brazil.
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