After the gunfire: How Rio’s deadliest police raid exploded into a political battlefield
Last Tuesday (October 28, 2025), before the sun had risen over Rio de Janeiro’s low hills, two favelas (shantytowns) on the city’s northern fringe were surrounded by heavily-armed troops as their armoured cars growled through narrow lanes and bursts of gunfire rattled the red-brick dwellings. The operation against the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang, which…