Police have failed to take crucial investigative steps to determine the circumstances of the killing of at least 121 people, including 4 police officers, during a raid in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28, 2025, Human Rights Watch said today. The raid affected low-income, primarily Black neighborhoods.
Police did not preserve crime scenes for analysis, a very important step to determine the circumstances of death. A Rio de Janeiro forensic expert told Human Rights Watch that to their knowledge, forensic experts-who are part of the civil police in Rio de Janeiro state-have not conducted a crime scene analysis in any of the killings. A state prosecutor said their office is waiting to confirm, but that they have the same understanding.
"The families of the people killed in the October 28 raid, including those of police officers, deserve to know the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths," said César Muñoz, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch. "We are very concerned that crucial investigative steps were not taken and that important evidence may have already been lost."
In the early hours of October 28, about 2,500 heavily armed military and civil police, backed by armored vehicles and helicopters, entered the vast Alemão and Penha neighborhoods, targeting one of the most powerful drug-trafficking groups in Brazil. Intense shootouts ensued, lasting hours.
Later that day, officials said that 64 people had been killed, including 4 police officers. The next day, residents found scores of additional bodies in a wooded area.
The military police secretary said in a news conference that police had pushed members of the criminal group toward the wooded area, which police knew gang members used as an escape route. At the top of hills there, the military police's elite unit, known as BOPE, had established what the secretary described as a "wall" with agents waiting for the fleeing alleged gang members.
A resident told Brazilian press that her son sent her his location and said he wanted to turn himself in, but he was afraid that police would kill him. His body was found in the wooded area.
The forensic expert said they believed that police officers had recovered the weapons that were in the hands of the people killed there and left.
On the morning of October 29, residents went to the wooded area and recovered scores of bodies, which they moved to a square in the Penha neighborhood. Reporters also reached the wooded area and found important unguarded evidence, including blood spatters, bullet casings, and clothing.
"We recognize the inherent difficulties of a wooded area, but the lack of control over the preservation of the site is surprising," the Rio de Janeiro state attorney general said.
The civil police secretary, head of the state force tasked with investigating crimes, said they had opened an investigation into the people who moved the bodies for possible tampering with evidence and accused them of removing clothing from the dead. Yet residents were only able to reach the bodies because police failed to protect the site of the shooting, Human Rights Watch said.
The forensic expert told Human Rights Watch that civil police chiefs did not deploy forensic experts to conduct crime scene analysis. Crime scene analysis should be carried out even if a body has been removed, as there can be additional evidence at the site.
Furthermore, forensic experts were not sent to the square to which the residents had moved scores of bodies, the forensic expert said. This was an important additional failure of the investigation, Human Rights Watch said.
Forensic experts should have been at the square to take photographs and collect evidence, including gunshot residue samples, which can show whether the person fired a weapon. This residue becomes lost with the handling of a body, such as during transportation.
Firefighters collected the bodies from the square and took them to the morgue. Medical examiners are conducting autopsies, yet there are concerns about limited personnel and infrastructure, as well as chronic underinvestment in the state's forensic services.
The state Public Defender's Office said civil police did not allow its staff to be present during the autopsies. Several civil society organizations, including Human Rights Watch, asked Rio de Janeiro's attorney general on October 30 to ensure that a victims' representative was present during the autopsies. That has not been done.
The Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor's Office said it had deployed its forensic experts and a prosecutor to the morgue.
Police said they had seized 118 weapons. The weapons should have been kept in a strict chain of custody in sealed bags and sent to forensic analysis for fingerprint and ballistic analysis. Instead, civil police presented the weapons to the press. Television reports show police and even reporters handling guns and other apprehended equipment without gloves.
In a 2017 ruling on a case in Rio de Janeiro, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Brazil to ensure that police abuses are investigated by "an independent body, distinct from the police force involved in the incident…assisted by police, forensic and administrative personnel unrelated to the law enforcement body to which those who are possibly involved belong."
The Brazilian Supreme Court has ruled that the Public Prosecutor's Office should lead investigations whenever there is "suspicion" of the involvement of law enforcement agents in an unlawful killing. The Supreme Court's decision emphasized the importance of properly preserving the crime scene to collect evidence at the site.
The court also ordered Rio de Janeiro police to use body cameras. But the military police secretary told reporters that the batteries may have run out during the operation and that "images may have been lost."
Resolution 310, adopted by the National Council of Prosecutors on April 29, 2025, established that the Public Prosecutor's Office should open criminal investigations into all killings by police. It said they can be assisted by forensic experts separate from the law enforcement force under investigation. The resolution states that prosecutors should ensure the integrity of the chain of custody of evidence and that investigations should abide by the Minnesota Protocol, a set of international guidelines which the Supreme Court also mentioned in its decision.
On October 30, the Justice Ministry announced it would send 20 federal police forensic experts to help with crime scene and ballistics analysis as well as autopsies.
In 2024, Rio de Janeiro police killed 703 people, official data show. They killed another 470 from January through August 2025. Of those killed in 2024, 86 percent were Black.
"Brazilian authorities should ensure a prompt, thorough, and independent investigation of each of the killings as well as the decisions and planning that led to such a disastrous operation," Muñoz said. "This case also highlights the urgent need for Rio de Janeiro's governor to introduce a bill to separate forensic services from the civil police and to invest in independent, high-quality forensic analysis, a key part of any criminal investigation, not just in cases of police killings."
