BRAZIL. POLICE 'EXECUTE THOUSANDS', BBC INVESTIGATION

hundreds, possibly thousands of people are shot by police every year in Brazil, a BBC investigation found. The authorities said it was mainly criminals caught in military-style raids on drug gangs but according to a former senior official, new evidence suggested that many of the shootings were cold-blooded executions conducted by the police.
Former police ombudsman Professor Julita Lemgruber had told BBC World Service's Assignment programme that, in the state of Rio alone, the police killed 983 people in 2004. The figure was similar for Sao Paulo.
"The federal government should be challenging the various state governments in Brazil about the hundreds of people that the police kill in this country," she said.
In the past five years, the number of fatal police shootings had more than doubled. Based on her experience as a government official, Professor Lemgruber said she believed the police were free to act with impunity.
"You couldn't really investigate complaints because you knew there was this curtain of silence that was always present," she said.
She added that she had personally dealt with cases in which summary executions had happened.
Former military policeman, Gordinho (not his real name), said executions by police death squads were common.
"When you get excited you feel you are the law... The shooting cases you hear about, most of them are executions.
"It's all premeditated - very cold-blooded and calculated."
"Around 60% of the bodies of people that were killed by the police had more than six shots," explained Professor Lemgruber.
"Most of them [were shot] in the head and in the back - mostly executions."