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The eyewitness

An eyewitness who witnessed the results of a large-scale law enforcement action in the Brazilian city has reported how residents returned with mutilated bodies of those who had died.

The casualties "continued arriving: the numbers kept rising", the eyewitness stated. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

A particular victim had been decapitated - additional victims were "totally disfigured", he said. Many also had evidence of blade trauma.

Over 120 individuals were fatally injured during Tuesday's raid on a criminal gang - the deadliest such raid Rio has experienced.

The eyewitness explained that residents first notified him to the raid early on Tuesday by community members from the Alemão area, who reached out alerting him there was a shoot-out.

The eyewitness made his way to the healthcare center, where the casualties were coming in.

The photographer stated that law enforcement prevented journalists from entering the Penha neighborhood, where the police action was under way.

"Law enforcement personnel created a barrier and announced: 'The press are not allowed to pass'."

However, the photographer, who spent his childhood in that neighborhood, stated he managed to make his way past the security perimeter, where he stayed until dawn.

He explained that evening, local residents started looking the mountainous area that separates the Penha neighborhood from the adjacent Alemão area for relatives who were unaccounted for since the police raid.

Community members living in Penha organized the located casualties in a square - the documented evidence reveal the reaction of those present.

"The violence of the situation shook me profoundly: the pain of the families, parents losing consciousness, women carrying children, sobbing, angry family members," the eyewitness remembered.

Bruno Itan

The governor of the region stated that the large-scale security action deploying about 2,500 officers was intended to preventing an illegal organization referred to as Red Command from growing their influence.

At first, local officials claimed that sixty alleged criminals along with four officers" lost their lives during the action.

They have since said that early calculations shows that 117 alleged criminals have been killed.

The legal assistance organization, that offers legal help to low-income residents, has calculated the total number of fatalities at 132.

According to researchers, the gang represents the unique criminal entity that recently has succeeded to make territorial gains in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

It is widely considered one of the two largest gangs nationally, alongside another major gang, featuring a timeline spanning over five decades.

According to reporter Rafael Soares, with extensive experience documenting crime in Rio extensively, the criminal organization "works as a system" with area gang leaders forming part of the gang and acting as "operational allies".

The gang engages primarily in drug trafficking, additionally trafficking weapons, precious metals, fuel, alcohol cigarettes.

According to the authorities, criminal affiliates have substantial firearms and police said that while the action was underway, they came under attack using drone-delivered explosives.

The governor of Rio state, the government representative, labeled Red Command members as drug terrorists and described the security forces killed in the raid as courageous individuals.

But the number of casualties in the operation has come in for criticism from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "shocked".

In a media appearance the next day, the official justified security actions.

"We did not plan to result in deaths. We wanted to arrest them all alive," he said.

He further explained that the circumstances had escalated due to the alleged criminals resisted aggressively: "It was a consequence of the counterattack they executed and the overwhelming response by the illegal group."

The official also said that the bodies presented by community members in the neighborhood had been "manipulated".

Through a message on online platforms, he said that some of them had been removed of the camouflage clothing he said they had been wearing "in order to shift blame onto the police".

Felipe Curi of Rio's civil police force further reported that "camouflage clothing, body armor, and weapons" were stripped from the victims and presented video appearing to show an individual stripping military attire {off a corpse