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Brazilian police suspected in multiple mass shootings
Date August 15, 2015 - 7:09PM
Angela Pereira de Souza, whose husband was shot dead in a bar, cries outside a police station in Osasco, Brazil, on Friday. Photo: AP
Masked men entered a bar in Brazil and shot dead patrons in cold blood, in one of 11 seemingly co-ordinated attacks on the outskirts of Sao Paulo overnight.
Eighteen people were killed and at least seven injured in a wave of overnight shootings. Brazilian media reported 11 attacks in total in the cities of Osasco e Barueri. A 19th death in Itapevi was originally included in the toll, but later said not to be related.
The victims are all men, aged between 16 and 41, out for a drink or with friends. Reports the victims had criminal records have not been confirmed.
Residents stand opposite a bar where some of the shootings occurred. Photo: AP
Brazilian Justice Minister José Eduardo Cardozo has offered all necessary support to Sao Paulo state to find the perpetrators, after media reports said the massacre could have been carried out by rogue police in retaliation for recent attacks that left a policeman dead.
Brazil's largest media group Globo reported investigators found spent shells belonging to 9-millimetre pistols, exclusive to the country's armed forces.
Authorities said the casings would be analysed to help determine if if they belonged to one or more groups.
Residents stand across the street from a bar where at least 10 people were shot the night before. Photo: AP
Sao Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin used Twitter to denounce the attacks as "intolerable".
Twitter user, Benjamin Lessing, assistant professor at the University of Chicago and director of Narcoviolence Research International, asked how long it would be before someone pointed fingers at the PCC, or Primeiro Comando da Capital, Brazil's largest organised crime gang responsible for countless shootings, kidnappings and prison rebellions, and financed by drug trafficking.
Governor Alckmin said a team of 50 police officers had been assigned to the case.
Witnesses have told local media that the bar killers stopped their targets and questioned them about their criminal records, then executed them.
AAP, Fairfax Media
