In the operation, 122 people died, including five police officers and 117 non-police individuals, in the Penha and Alemão complexes in the northern zone of the capital.
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According to the State Secretariat of Public Security, so far, only the investigations into the assassinations of the five police officers (three military and two civilian) have been concluded.
The inquiries indicted 12 individuals for involvement in the deaths, with nine directly implicated in the homicides and three suspected of ordering the attacks on police forces.
The other 117 people died, according to Rio de Janeiro's public security authorities, in confrontations with the police.These deaths are still under investigation by the Civil Police and the Public Ministry of the state (MPRJ), with no conclusions reached so far, despite signs of illegalities and excesses by police forces.
At least two of them caught the attention of the MPRJ and were considered "atypical". One is a death from close-range gunfire. The other is the beheading of Yago Ravel Rodrigues Rosario, who had his head separated from his body by a machete after being shot in the lumbar region.
HRW analyzed the criminal investigation procedure conducted by the MPRJ (almost 9,000 pages), the 122 autopsy reports, and 4,400 hours of body-camera footage, as well as interviewing 41 individuals, including witnesses, victims' relatives, and researchers, to produce the report released on Wednesday.
Investigation and expertise
One of the international NGO's findings is that police failed to adopt investigative measures after the deaths.According to HRW, the General Department of Homicide and Personal Protection, responsible for investigating homicides in the state, became aware of the operation in an informal conversation a week beforehand and took no action in preparation for it.
Additionally, in the late morning, forensic teams from the Civil Police were called by the Department and gathered at the Police City, a few kilometers from the two slum complexes where the operation was taking place, but they were never sent to the scene, according to HRW.
By the end of the day, several bodies began to be collected by police, without the presence of Civil Police forensic teams.As found by HRW, many were taken to a location without the presence of technical police, and then handed over to the Civil Defense, who eventually took them to the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML).
Rio de Janeiro, October 29, 2025 - Dozens of bodies are brought by residents to São Lucas Square, in Penha, Rio de Janeiro's North Zone, following a police operation in the Contenção (Containment) Operation.Eusébio Gomes/TV Brasil
The expertise was not even sent to Praça São Lucas, where residents took dozens of bodies, according to HRW. There, experts could have made photographic records and preliminary analyses of the victims, according to the report.
Among the victims recovered from the scene of their deaths are 33 taken by the Military Police and transported to the morgue, and 62 carried by residents of the favel complexes to Praça São Lucas.
HRW verified that due to many bodies remaining on the ground, exposed to ambient temperature for several hours, they were already in a state of decomposition, hindering the autopsy work of the medical examiners.
According to the international NGO, another issue was that no site was preserved for subsequent forensic examination. The police claimed that the agents were in the midst of an armed confrontation, preventing them from securing these sites for the experts.
However, HRW found that neither the areas that could have been easily preserved, such as the interior of residences where some were killed, nor the vicinity of the train station located outside the favel sets, where two suspects died, were secured for forensic examination.
There was also little concern for preserving the 118 weapons allegedly seized during the operation.
"The weapons should have been kept in sealed bags and sent for forensic analysis of fingerprints and ballistics. Instead, the police presented the weapons without packaging at a press conference. Television reports showed police officers and even reporters handling seized weapons and equipment without gloves," the report states.
Julya Almeida shows a video with images of cartridges found in her backyard in the Vila da Penha community after the Containment Operation.Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil
Body cameras
Additionally, there are strong indications that the police also attempted to hinder subsequent investigations that could be opened at the end of the operation.
The report found, for example, that some police officers may have adopted the common practice in Rio de Janeiro police of removing dead people from the crime scenes to obstruct the forensic investigation.At least 16 people were transported by police to hospitals, where they already arrived dead.
In four cases, the police admitted that they were already dead when taken to the hospital, as HRW agents from the Special Resources Coordination (Core) claimed that when they found these people in the streets of the slums, they were already dead.
Furthermore, the report found, as the MPRJ did, that several of the agents involved in the operation manipulated their body cameras (equipment that is attached to the agents' uniforms).
The HRW investigation showed, for example, that none of the 117 non-police deaths were recorded by the agents' equipment.
There are indications that police officers intentionally hid or removed their cameras from their uniforms at specific times.
There are images clearly showing police officers placing their hand in front of the lens or putting the equipment in a place where the lens is facing in another direction.
Some cameras were not even taken by the police during the foot patrol, as they were left inside the vehicles.
According to HRW, these interruptions in the recordings occurred at key moments of the operation, such as arrests, shootouts, or within residences.
Many devices had their batteries drained before the end of the operation and turned off before the time when more deaths occurred.
The international NGO found that the average recording time of the cameras of 305 front-line police officers analyzed was 6 hours and 38 minutes, well below the expected 12 hours of autonomy for the equipment.
The Military Police protocol clearly specifies the need to bring extra batteries when the operation is longer than 12 hours. According to HRW, this was not done.
From noon on the day of the operation, the recordings began to suffer more interruptions. In 55% of the cases of the 305 front-line police cameras analyzed, the footage is interrupted or shows a significant gap in the recorded material from that time.
Another issue is that only 23% of the 2,500 officers who participated in the action were wearing body cameras.
Evidence of execution
Rio de Janeiro, 10/29/2025 - Residents protest against executions in the Vila da Penha community during the Containment Operation.Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil
The report found that 60% of the deceased were shot four or more times. Of the five police officers killed, only one was shot twice, while the other four died from a single wound.
Among the 117 non-police individuals, only 19 were killed by a single shot. Twelve died from two shots, and 13 from three. Seventy-three died from four or more shots.
There were seven cases where the number of firearm wounds on the body exceeded ten. One of the deceased received 13 shots.
In 71% of cases, the victims had entry wounds from projectiles on both sides of the body (either front, back, right or left side). In 34% of cases, there were injuries on three sides of the body (front, back, and at least one side).
Of the 117 deceased, 12% had injuries only on the rear part of the body, meaning they were shot while facing backward. Eighty-five of them had at least one wound on the rear part of the body. One received 11 shots to the back.
Fifty were shot in the head (either the front or back), including the youngest victim, a 14-year-old adolescent. He was shot three times in the front and three times in the back.
A man, who died from ten bullets, received at least six at point-blank range, less than 60 centimeters away from the shooter to the victim.
According to HRW, in many cases it was not possible to determine the shooting distance due to the condition of the bodies and because many were naked, allegedly by their own police.
Another death that drew HRW's attention was that of Ronaldo Julião da Silva, 46, who, according to community residents, was not a member of the faction and was reportedly unarmed when killed.The autopsy report showed he was hit in the back, left armpit, left hand, and twice in the face.
There are testimonies from relatives of victims indicating that people were surrendering and still being killed by police.
There is a case of a mother who received a message from her son saying he wanted to surrender but feared being killed by the police, which had already happened to his peers. The young man later appeared dead.
TheBrazil AgencyIt contacted both the Civil and Military Police to discuss Operation Containment.
The Military Police stated they would not grant any interviews on the matter. The Civil Police did not respond to the reporter's request. The space remains open to include the positions of the corporations.
The Secretariat of Public Security sent a note stating that the investigations into the 117 deaths are ongoing at the Capital Homicide Delegation.
In the last 12 months, 242 statements have been collected and 553 forensic reports have been produced and analyzed. Diligences are continuing, including the performance of 105 additional examinations. The work is being monitored by the Specialized Group in Public Security (Gaesp), from the State Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro.