{"id":202874,"date":"2019-02-19T01:26:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T06:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=202874"},"modified":"2019-02-19T01:26:49","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T06:26:49","slug":"brazil-human-rights-group-calls-for-inquiry-into-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/19\/brazil-human-rights-group-calls-for-inquiry-into-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil human rights group calls for inquiry into shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Gov. Wilson Witzel floated several ideas during his election campaign and since taking office Jan. 1, including using sharpshooters during police operations with authority to kill armed drug traffickers. (File Photo<\/a>: wilsonwitzel\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 The Brazilian branch of Human Rights Watch said Monday that police might have used sharpshooters to kill at least two men in a Rio de Janeiro neighbourhood, and called for an independent and thorough investigation.<\/p>\n

The group also said another man was shot in similar circumstance earlier but survived. The 22-year-old bricklayer claims the shot that nearly killed him came from a nearby police tower, and several witnesses corroborated that, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n

The report comes as the new governor of Rio de Janeiro state is promising to crack down on crime, one of the state’s biggest problems. Gov. Wilson Witzel<\/a> floated several ideas during his election campaign and since taking office Jan. 1, including using sharpshooters during police operations with authority to kill armed drug traffickers.<\/p>\n

Witzel, whose discussion of public security matters is often in line with the hard line taken by President Jair Bolsonaro<\/a>, called drug traffickers “narco-terrorists” in his swearing-in speech, saying they would “be treated like terrorists.”<\/p>\n

“Armed criminals have taken over and dominated portions of our territory, causing disgrace and disorder. I will not allow this ‘parallel power’ to continue,” Witzel said in the speech.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch said the shootings took place in the Manguinhos shantytown, at a square less than 300 metres (yards) from the city’s main police complex.<\/p>\n

“When Human Rights Watch visited the site on Feb. 4, a hot dog tent in the square, in the tower’s line of sight, had two holes that appeared to be from bullets,” the group’s statement read.<\/p>\n

The report said the state prosecutor’s office had confirmed that the incident was being looked into by a special task force, whose members visited the tower and concluded it would possible for a sniper lying down on the building’s roof to shoot someone on the square where the men were killed.<\/p>\n

Police officials and the state prosecutor’s office were not immediately available to comment, but Brazilian news media said authorities started investigating the claim Feb. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO \u2014 The Brazilian branch of Human Rights Watch said Monday that police might have used sharpshooters to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":202875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-diane-jeantet","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}