Brazilian state of Amazonas asks for National Force police after wave of attacks

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The government of the Brazilian state of Amazonas requested the dispatch of agents of the National Force, an elite police force, to reinforce security in the region amid a wave of attacks by criminal groups.

The governor of Amazonas, Wilson Lima, advised this Monday that he asked the federal government for police reinforcement to “combat the acts of vandalism registered in recent hours” in the state capital, Manaus.

Criminals set fire early this morning to an ambulatory health center, a labor union building, and an ATM, and shot at a police station in the city center, where there was an exchange of fire with law enforcement agents.

According to police commissioner Marcelo Martins, the bandits arrived at the police station by boat due to the historical rise of the Negro River. They threw a grenade at the building, but the device did not explode.

Amid the wave of violence, buses were not running on Monday for the second day in a row, after at least 16 vehicles were set on fire early Sunday morning.

“The entire force of our security forces is on the streets. The order is to act with rigor,” governor Lima said.

Authorities suspect the vandalism is a response to the death of a drug trafficker, identified as Erick Batista Costa, known as Dadinho, age 30, a member of a criminal group, during a police operation on Saturday in Manaus.

The order for the wave of attacks allegedly came from inside a prison now holding several leaders of the criminal faction to which the dead drug trafficker belonged.

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