TV Crew Films Police Execution Brazilian State Police Pin Down, Kill Unarmed Suspect After Mall Robbery

A television crew covering a mall robbery’s aftermath filmed state troopers killing an unarmed suspect with three shots to the back Saturday as he lay prone on the ground, held down by other officers.

State Security Secretary Euclimar da Silva ordered police to identify and punish the officers responsible.

Rio’s Globo television network showed the killing, in which one police officer, aware of the television camera and a group of spectators, shot the surrendered suspect three times in the back.

Police killed the driver of a getaway van in a shootout before the arrest.

A Globo employee who didn’t want to be identified told The Associated Press that three armed bandits tried to assault an armored car at about noon Saturday. The car was collecting money from shops in the Rio Sul shopping center on Rio’s trendy South Side.

Police arrived in mid-robbery and shot the driver of the getaway van. The TV crew, at the shopping center covering another story, filmed the brief shootout and the arrest of the second suspect.

The video depicted police throwing the man to the ground while another officer shouted something unintelligible at the watching crowd and put his hand over the camera lens.

He then rushed back and helped about five officers drag the suspect by the shirt to the other side of the getaway van.

While spectators could still see the man’s body underneath the van, the officer shot the suspect three times with the suspect’s own revolver, the film showed.

Nerves are frayed in Rio of late after the deaths of several police officers shot and killed in incidents across the city.