Weekly Report - 07 September 2023 (WR-23-36)

Over a month after São Paulo state deployed a massive police force of around 600 personnel to the Baixada Santista metropolitan area, targeting suspected members of drug trafficking organisations (DTOs) on 28 July, the state’s public security secretary, Guilherme Derrite, announced the end of the controversial Operation ‘Escudo’ on 5 September. The state government has denied that the operation, one of the deadliest series of police raids in the past two decades, involved excessive use of police force, despite widespread concern from NGOs and human rights groups about alleged police brutality.