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 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Police trained assault rifles on residents of a gang-infested shantytown as they went back to school and work Thursday, pledging a war on drug gangs after a raid that killed 19 suspected criminals.
More than 1,300 heavily armed officers exchanged gunfire with gangs for hours in one of Rio's most dangerous slums on Wednesday, and Rio state security secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame promised more police incursions to oust the gangs that rule over most of the city's 600 slums.
He said Thursday that the heavy show of force — which wounded bystanders caught in the crossfire — marked the end to an unofficial "silent nonaggression pact" between officers and drug gangs over turf in the slums.
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