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The eyewitness

A photographer who witnessed the results of an extensive security raid in the metropolitan area has reported how local people returned with disfigured remains of the deceased individuals.

The bodies "kept piling up: the count kept increasing", Bruno Itan described. The total contained law enforcement personnel.

A particular victim was discovered headless - additional victims were "completely mutilated", he said. Many also had what he described as stab wounds.

More than 120 people were killed in the Tuesday operation on a criminal gang - the bloodiest action in the city.

The photographer explained that he initially learned concerning the action early on Tuesday by community members living in Alemão, who contacted him alerting him an armed confrontation was occurring.

The reporter traveled to a local medical facility, where the victims were arriving.

The eyewitness reported that law enforcement blocked media personnel from going into the Penha neighborhood, where the operation were occurring.

"Security forces created a barrier and said: 'Journalists doesn't get past here'."

Nevertheless, the eyewitness, who spent his childhood in the community, stated he succeeded to gain access past the security perimeter, where he continued until dawn.

He explained that evening, area inhabitants began to search the mountainous area which divides the Penha neighborhood from the nearby Alemão neighbourhood for relatives who had been missing since the police raid.

Residents living in Penha proceeded to place the located casualties in a square - the documented evidence show the emotions of the gathered crowd.

"The brutality of it all shook me profoundly: the grief of loved ones, women collapsing, women carrying children, weeping, outraged parents," the reporter recounted.

The photographer

The governor of Rio state announced that the massive police operation involving around 2,500 law enforcement members was designed to preventing a gang called Red Command from growing their influence.

Originally, the Rio state government stated that sixty individuals plus four law enforcement personnel" had been killed in the operation.

Authorities later reported that initial estimates suggests that 117 individuals lost their lives.

Rio's public defender's office, that offers legal help to the poor, has put the final tally of people killed as 132.

Based on expert analysis, the gang stands as the sole illegal faction that in the past few years has managed to increase its control across the region.

It is widely considered among the biggest criminal organizations in Brazil, alongside a rival criminal group, and has a history extending half a century.

According to Brazilian journalist a specialist, with extensive experience documenting crime in Rio for years, Red Command "operates like a franchise" with neighborhood bosses forming part of the gang and acting as "business partners".

The criminal group engages primarily in drug trafficking, while also dealing in firearms, valuable minerals, energy resources, liquor cigarettes.

Per law enforcement statements, organization members are well armed and police said that while the action was underway, they came under attack via weaponized unmanned aircraft.

The governor of Rio state, Cláudio Castro, characterized Red Command members as criminal extremists and described the security forces killed in the raid as brave public servants.

But the number of people killed in the security action has received condemnation from UN human rights officials expressing they felt "shocked".

At a news conference the next day, the state leader defended the police force.

"There was no objective to cause fatalities. We intended to take suspects into custody without harm," he said.

He further explained that the events had escalated because the suspects fought back: "It resulted of the counterattack they implemented and the disproportionate use of force by the illegal group."

The official additionally stated that the bodies displayed by locals in Penha had been "tampered with".

Through a message on social media, he asserted that certain victims had been taken of tactical gear he said they had been wearing "in order to shift blame onto the police".

A police official of Rio's civil police force also said that "camouflage clothing, protective equipment, and firearms" were taken away from the casualties and presented video apparently demonstrating a man removing tactical gear {off a corpse