Crime

A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force Wednesday and calls for Rio's governor to resign.

Families of the dead decried what they described as executions by police, while the state government hailed a successful operation against a powerful criminal group that has taken over large swaths of the city.

Dozens of favelas residents gathered in front of the state's government headquarters shouting "assassins!" and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio's deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation.

BBC News verified several videos showing dozens of bodies laid out in a row in a market area of Rio, in its northern Penha district.

Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil's Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Rio state Gov. Claudio Castro to provide detailed information about the operation.

"This was a massacre," said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha.