This Won't Help

One of the arguments made against Rio de Janeiro being awarded the Olympics  was the issue of security. The events of this weekend is fodder for the naysayers:

Some 2,000 police officers patrolled the streets of Rio de Janeiro Sunday after a bloody confrontation between rival drug gangs and authorities that killed 14 over the weekend, including two police officers.

Two suspected drug traffickers were killed and four were arrested in Sunday's operations by Rio de Janeiro's military police, the official news agency Agencia Brasil reported.

But the atmosphere in general appeared calm in the slum known Morro dos Macacos in northern Rio, where the day before crossfire between two gangs left 12 dead, including two police officers who died when their helicopter was shot out of the sky. Residents had also set eight buses on fire during the clashes in an attempt to divert the attention of police.

"This was truly one of the worst incidents of this type," one local resident told CNN en Español, who declined to give his name for fear of his safety. "It was like a scene from a real war. It was like the world would end, lots of bullets, lots of noise."

The issue that is really alarming is how the helicopter was brought down:

Rio's secretary of public security, Jose Mariano Beltrame, said the helicopter was likely brought down by .30- and .50-caliber machine gunfire, the news agency [Agencia Brasil] said.

These are military weapons mounted on tripods and capable of firing several hundred rounds per minute. The fact that these are being used by criminals cannot help but be unnerving.

There is still time to remedy these situations, but my other great fear is in the solution. All too often, the remedy used is brute force with revenge as the motivating factor, with the result being extrajudicial executions and killings of civilians. The last thing Rio needs is a repeat of what happened in Mexico City prior to the 1968 Olympics.

Comments

[Nathan]

Well, best of luck to Brazil with figuring out a good solution to getting crime under control before 2016...

God knows, I don't envy the person with that job...