Pool of blood in the floor, intestines, heart ripped out, and heads beheaded; Brazil jail authorities witnessed horrible scenes as the largest and powerful drug gang killed 31 inmates in a northern Brazil prison on Friday. Using the blood, the gang leaders then wrote messages of revenge “Blood is paid for with blood”.
In this week, 60 inmates were killed during rioting at two prisons which increases fears that violence could spread. The members of the First Capital Command (PCC) gang carried out the violent incident in the Monte Cristo prison in the Amazonian state of Roraima. It enhanced the violence between criminal groups which controlling Brazil’s prisons.
On Sunday, the PCC was targeted. In a cellphone video that was circulating widely a PCC member said, “You killed our brothers, didn’t you? Look here, look what is going to happen you! This is revenge for what you did to our brothers.”
Security secretary of the state, Uziel Castro blamed Friday’s violence at the state-run prison on the PCC. He also said it is suspected that most of the inmates who were killed on Friday were not members of the group involved in the attack on PCC in Amazonas and perhaps had no gang affiliations.
Castro said the massacre began around 2:30 am on Friday. He said generally PCC members did not attack the rival gang members.
He asserted, “There was no confrontation, this was a killing spree. It was barbaric. Some were beheaded, others had their hearts or intestines ripped out.”
Rafael Alcadipani, a public security expert at the Getulio Vargas Foundation think tank in Sao Paulo said, “It’s getting really ugly. This situation is clearly snowballing and there is nothing the government can do to stop the violence in the short term. We are paying the price for 50 years of total neglect of the penitentiary system.”
Brazil’s prison is the fourth largest in the world and has more than 620,000 inmates. Castro said, “Criminals are trying to kill each other. What we need is the federal government help. This is all over Brazil.”
Earlier, the North Family drug faction attacked the PCC members. The North Family controls the Anisio Jobim penitentiary in Amazonas. According to the authorities, this group is dealing with cocaine traffic in Amazonas from Columbia and Peru. This group is associated with the Rio de Janeiro-based Red Command drug gang, Brazil’s second most powerful faction after PCC.
PCC and Red Command maintained an alliance for more than two decades to ensure a steady flow of drugs and guns. But six months ago the two groups split as PCC moved to take control of lucrative drug routes across the border with Paraguay and become Brazil’s dominant gang.
This riot in Amazonas included the country’s worst prison massacre since 1992. In the disturbances, almost 184 prisoners escaped from the prisons and only 65 had been recaptured.
