🔗 Share this article The casualties continued piling up - reporter shares lethal Rio law enforcement operation The photographer Dozens of bodies were displayed in a square in the Rio neighborhood following the most lethal operation Rio has ever seen An eyewitness who witnessed the consequences of a massive security raid in Rio de Janeiro has recounted how community members came back with badly injured victims of those who had died. The victims "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", the eyewitness reported. They included security forces. One of the bodies had been decapitated - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he explained. Several bodies showed what he described as stab wounds. More than 120 people were fatally injured during Tuesday's raid on a criminal gang - the bloodiest action Rio has experienced. In excess of 100 suspects were taken into custody as part of the security raid The eyewitness reported that he initially learned about the operation Tuesday morning by local people living in Alemão, who contacted him informing him gunfire had erupted. The photographer made his way to the healthcare center, where the casualties were arriving. The eyewitness reported that the police blocked media personnel from entering the Penha neighborhood, where the security measures were taking place. "Law enforcement personnel established a perimeter and said: 'Journalists cannot proceed beyond this point'." Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who grew up in that neighborhood, explained he succeeded to enter into the restricted zone, where he stayed until the next morning. He reported that evening, local residents began to search the elevated terrain which divides the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for relatives who were unaccounted for following the security action. Community members living in Penha arranged the located casualties in a public space - the documented evidence show the response of the gathered crowd. "The violence of what occurred impacted me a lot: the pain of relatives, women collapsing, women carrying children, weeping, furious relatives," the photographer recalled. The eyewitness There was disbelief in the community as locals retrieved more and more bodies from the nearby hillside The state leader of the region announced that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 officers was aimed at preventing a gang called the criminal faction from increasing their control. At first, the Rio state government stated that "60 suspects plus four law enforcement personnel" had been killed in the raid. Authorities later reported that their "preliminary" count shows that 117 "suspects" were fatally injured. The legal assistance organization, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has calculated the overall count of casualties as 132. Based on expert analysis, Red Command stands as the sole illegal faction that recently has succeeded to increase its control in the state of Rio de Janeiro. It is widely considered among the biggest criminal organizations nationally, together with a rival criminal group, with a background extending half a century. Per correspondent Rafael Soares, who has been covering criminal activity in the city for years, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with local criminal leaders joining the organization and acting as "business partners". The gang engages primarily in narcotics distribution, while also dealing in weapons, gold, energy resources, liquor cigarettes. Based on official reports, gang members have substantial firearms and officials reported that while the action was underway, they encountered resistance via weaponized unmanned aircraft. The governor of the state, Cláudio Castro, characterized Red Command members as drug terrorists and called the security forces fatally injured in the action as courageous individuals. But the number of casualties in the security action has faced scrutiny from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "shocked". At a news conference on Wednesday, Governor Castro supported law enforcement. "There was no objective to result in deaths. We aimed to arrest them all alive," he declared. He added that the situation intensified due to the alleged criminals fought back: "It resulted of the retaliation they carried out and the disproportionate use of force from the gang members." The governor also said that the bodies displayed by locals in the area were "altered". In a post on social media, he claimed that certain victims had been removed of military-style attire which he claimed they wore "to transfer accusation toward law enforcement". A police official of Rio's civil police force further reported that "camouflage clothing, protective equipment, and arms" had been removed from the casualties and showed footage seemingly depicting a person removing tactical gear {off a corpse