RIO DE JANEIRO—Human Rights Watch said Thursday that a pattern of covering up police killings has thwarted efforts to curb violence in Rio de Janeiro’s slums ahead of the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.
Many of the people killed by police in recent years were unarmed, in custody or trying to flee, according to the 109-page report. Authorities have said that in most cases, the police had come under attack, but prosecutors told the rights group that in the majority of the cases there was no confrontation.
The city is gearing up for the Olympic Games that begin on Aug. 5, with security as one of the main concerns. Rights groups have condemned the increasing use of excessive force in slums and outlying areas. Human Rights Watch said the lack of investigation and prosecution of officers to some extent unraveled a security overhaul that had shown progress.
“You can’t be an effective police officer in a community if people distrust you, fear you, they even hate you,” said Daniel Wilkinson, managing director of the Americas division at the organization. “It’s compromising any effort to improve public security and fulfill this promise for the Olympics.”
Rio police have had a long track record of carrying out extrajudicial killings with more than 8,000 deaths by law enforcement since 2006. However, Wilkinson said police killings dropped from 2007 to 2013 after an effort to reduce crime in violent slums through the use of a new community police force.
But police killings have been rising in the past three years in Rio de Janeiro state, with 645 people killed in officer-involved shootings in 2015, compared to 416 in 2013.
