In the early hours of October 25th, 2025, Governor Claudio Castro gave the final green light for Operation Containment which saw 2,500 security force personnel of Rio de Janeiro enter the communities of Penha and Alemão unleashing their most violent police operation on record.
What ensued has been described as ‘a slaughter’, bullets, blood, and bodies littering the streets as gunfire was exchanged between the local criminal group the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) and the security forces. The result, as of writing this, are at least 125 deaths. Of this number, 117 have currently been identified as ‘suspects’, four were serving police officers, of which one, Rodrigo Cabral had only been on the job 40 days, and finally, at least four innocent residents lost their lives on this day of terror.
The people of Rio are no strangers to violence, both in terms of police operations and criminal factional disputes, however the sheer scale of this has surpassed anything previously seen within the city. The formerly most deadly police operation on record was in Jacarezinho in 2021 with 28 deaths. This therefore departs from the previous paradigm of what was thus acceptable (or not) in terms of death in these operations. What therefore explains this huge rise in lethal violence at the hands of the state?
Violent police operations have been the overarching modus operandi of the state since democratisation in 1985 with intermittent periods of reduced violence and alternative policing strategies, the most famous being the Police Pacification Policy in the early 2010s. One argument for this most recent and extreme level of police violence is that it is political. The next election is just 12 months away, and Governor Castro is now running for the Senate.
In many respects his governorship has been an abject failure and for politician Marcelo Freixo and commentator Cecília Olliveira, this new, more lethal police operation is serving purely political purposes. They make the argument that as with other police operations the status quo of territory controlled by the CV will be restored ‘amanha’ (tomorrow) and everything will return to normal with trafficker control and public drug sale points.
In addition, the lack of any territory taken by the state and the huge ramifications of such a violent operation demonstrate the serious misgivings of such an action. Although there is evident truth in this, the sheer scale of death in this police action may lead some to ask more questions. Did Castro need to intervene with such violence, if politics was the only goal? Does the level of violence used signal a new public security strategy?
Indeed, with this in mind, one thinks of Nayib Bukele President of El Salvador. Bukele has become infamous with his state of exception and the imprisonment of over 80,000 people which has resulted in 261 deaths within the penitentiary system. Is Castro going to introduce a new even more highly lethal public security policy? At this early stage it is difficult to know, however the numbers associated with the action in Vila Cruzeiro this Wednesday have certainly departed from the already violent norm.
Castro has commented that the operation achieved its success, although he has done little to outline what success means, apart from the high body count, there were 81 arrests, and 93 rifles seized. He has gone as far to comment ‘The only victims yesterday were the police’, which has been premature as there are now confirmations of innocent victims.
The notion to flush out the criminality in the city is an idea I heard from police officers during my doctoral research. A former BOPE officer told me: "I am convinced that you need to carry out the operations. But you need to carry out the operations continuously…Non-stop, non-stop, non-stop... until their logistical capacity is exhausted."
Thus, what Rio has witnessed this week has not taken place in a vacuum, many officers would have been very supportive of such action, as would have vast swathes of the Rio’s population with many still agreeing with the phrase ‘bandido bom é bandido morto’ (a good criminal is a dead criminal).
The idea of continuous and excessively violent police operations against non-state armed actors such as the CV, though, has a number of critical issues. The first is the continued high levels of corruption within the security forces, with numerous reports of the police and state selling weapons to these criminal groups and the fact that there is little police action against the other major criminal group in the city, the milícias (paramilitary groups) who by no coincidence are connected to the state.
This latest human tragedy has also highlighted the disconnected nature to public security in Brazil. Castro has come out in public and placed partial blame on the federal government for their lack of assistance in this latest police action. He claims that he requested support in terms of more troops and equipment, but that this request was declined.
In response the federal government has declared that Castro did not formally request a ‘Guarantee of law and Order’ which enables the use of federal forces in state operations. In addition, the federal government has stated they have provided more than R$ 470 million for the State of Rio in the past few years to combat organised crime, and only half the money has been used.
Following discussions between Castro and Minister of Justice Ricardo Lewandowski on the night of the 29th, there has now been an announcement that a partnership to combat organised crime has been agreed. Time will tell if this comes to any fruitful results for the people of Rio. The truth is that neither the federal or state governments, neither Lula or Bolsonaro have looked seriously at tackling public security issues in Brazil and Rio. Over the past 20 years communities under the control of criminal organisations have only grown.
In the shadow of all this graphic violence, are the devastated families, terrified children, schools shut, hospitals closed. The often-invisible victims of this ongoing war are the unfortunate members of Rio’s society who endure its harshest consequences.
For Rio de Janeiro to break this endless cycle of, in many respects, mindless violence, there needs to be a recalibration of how both the federal and state governments respond to public security. If this latest bloodshed leads to nothing, which is probably most expected, there will most likely be another Operation Containment in 12 to 24 months, with the same outrage, with the same devastation, and with the same continuity in a broken public security system.