Rio de Janeiro: Five Brazilian police officers have been taken into custody for allegedly altering a crime scene by placing a gun in the hand of a teenager they allegedly killed during a shoot-out in a Rio de Janeiro slum.
Seventeen-year-old Eduardo Felipe Santos Victor was shot to death on Tuesday in the Providencia slum.
As he lay dying in a pool of blood, a slum resident videotaped one of the officers firing a handgun into the air and then putting the gun in the youth’s hand. The video quickly spread on social media networks.
A Providencia resident told the Globo TV network that she saw the shooting and that the victim had tried to surrender.
“He was armed but he surrendered,” she said. “After he raised his hands, they shot him.”
The officers involved in the shooting registered the incident saying they acted in self-defence.
In a statement, Rio de Janeiro State Security Secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame condemned the killing and promised “exemplary punishment” for the five officers.
In their initial report, the officers said they were attacked by the boy whereupon they returned fire.
The officers were arrested and accused of killing the boy, who, eyewitnesses said, had surrendered without resistance.
Many deaths involving police officers are registered as acts of resistance from suspects.
However, human rights organisations allege that in a number of cases, police officers faked evidence to pretend they were attacked first.
