BRAZIL. POLICE SUMMARILY EXECUTE GANG SUSPECTS

human rights groups voiced concern over summary executions as Brazilian police pressed on with a counter-attack against the First Capital Command, a powerful Sao Paulo gang, in a street war that had claimed at least 170 lives. New York-based Human Rights Watch said police had already been presented complaints that some of the deaths had been summary executions by police, and some of those killed innocent bystanders. "Heinous attacks on police or civilians cannot justify summary executions by police," said HRW researcher Paulo Mesquita in a statement.
The prison-based First Capital Command gang launched a coordinated offensive against police on May 12 in retaliation for the transfer of hundreds of inmates to a maximum security prison.
"There are death squads with masked people who come out of cars or motorcycles and kill people," said Ariel de Castro Alves, coordinator of the National Human Rights Movement.
"We already have a list of 16 people who were killed and had nothing to do with crime," Castro Alves said.
Sao Paulo police ombudsman Antonio Funari Filho also expressed concern to AFP: "We are worried by assassinations by people wearing masks."
"Every unexplained killing that police don't take responsibility for may be committed by parallel commandos or police avenging their colleagues," he said.