New Prison Gang Attacks on Sao Paulo

by insideprison.com, July 2006

The violence continued yesterday, as new offensives by members of the gang First Command of the Capital (see our profile) laid siege to the city's transit system. In the 130th attack since since the destruction began Tuesday, five buses were torched just before dawn, followed by eight others and two trash trucks outside the city limits, leaving a driver and three-year-old boy with serious burns and prompting several bus companies to shut down services on Thursday. In addition to the bus strikes was an explosion at a shopping centre, destroying 4 vehicles and several homes, storefronts, and automatic teller machines.

A leader of the First Command of the Capital was shot dead by police and nine other members were arrested. Reports say that police have effectively diffused the growth of future violence, and are now working towards containing the situation. The gang, which has been responsible for several rebellions in recent years, and which currently remains the largest and most powerful gang in Sao Paulo state with an estimated 100,000 affiliates, is protesting the country's squalid prison conditions that have drawn international condemnation.

Meanwhile, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spent his first full day campaigning for re-election, ignoring the media's inquiries on the violence spreading throughout the capital and instead focusing on social and economic conditions of Sao Paulo's industrial suburb of Sao Bernardo do Campo.