Rio Police Condemned For Executing Suspect

An international human rights group on Monday condemned the police execution of a disarmed robbery suspect, while some crime-weary citizens said the officers’ action was justified.

“There is no excuse for such a banal and vulgar crime,” James Cavallaro, head of the New York-based human rights group Americas Watch, said Monday. “Those police officers were in no danger, making this a simple case of cowardly murder.”

The Globo TV network broadcast film of state troopers pinning the robbery suspect to the ground Saturday and shooting him in the back.

The killing was condemned by some Rio citizens but accepted by others who said they were angry about burgeoning crime and drug-related deaths in the city in recent years.

“We can’t have any pity for a bandit,” said Christina Alencar, 35, a librarian.