RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) Human Rights Watch said Thursday that a pattern of covering up police killings has thwarted efforts to curb violence in Rio de Janeiro's slums ahead of the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.
Many of the people killed by police in recent years were unarmed, in custody or trying to flee, according to the 109-page report. Authorities have said that in most cases, the police had come under attack, but prosecutors told the rights group that in the majority of the cases there was no confrontation.
The city is gearing up for the Olympic Games that begin on Aug. 5, with security as one of the main concerns. Rights groups have condemned the increasing use of excessive force in slums and outlying areas.
''Executing suspected criminals is not the answer,'' said Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch. ''These unlawful killings turn communities against the police and undermine security for all.''
Police killings rose in the past three years in Rio de Janeiro state, with 644 people killed in officer-involved shootings in 2015, compared to 416 in 2013. The rate of 3.9 police killings per 100,000 people in 2015 is almost five times that of South Africa's and nearly ten times that of the U.S.
The New York-based rights group interviewed 34 current and former police officers who detailed a ''culture of combat'' that rewards them for killing instead of arresting suspects. They said they covered up killings by planting guns on suspects, or removing victims from crime scenes to deliver dead people at hospitals, destroying evidence in the process.
The organization said it studied 64 cases and found that forensic evidence in half of them was inconsistent with officials' accounts. Autopsies in 20 cases showed the dead had been shot at close range, something not typical in shootouts. The report also showed that Rio police killed five people for each person they injured from 2013 to 2015, a number the group says is ''the reverse of what one would expect.''
The rights group said it is rare for police officers to be prosecuted. The investigative police are usually tasked with initiating probes, but detectives often do not visit the scenes of police killings or even interview all of the officers involved, the report said, adding that prosecutors filed charges in only 15 of the 3,441 police killings between 2010 and 2015.
The group recommends increasing the number of prosecutors who investigate only police abuse and improving internal investigations within the police.
Rio de Janeiro state security officials did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
