Tim Lopes - Police Invade Vila Cruzeiro and The Complexo

Police Invade Vila Cruzeiro and The Complexo

On November 25, 2010, Rio's special forces battalion (BOPE) supported by other police units, entered Vila Cruzeiro in Penha via Brazilian Marine armored transport to various points within the slum, and ultimately took control of the hill, and the surrounding area of Penha. This action was in response to attacks throughout Rio by the criminal faction headquartered there. Military and civil police units (which included CORE, Federal Police, among others) then took over the territory of the network of favelas comprising the Complexo do Alemão with support from the Brazilian Armed Forces. Thousands of soldiers of the Brazilian military were stationed throughout these communities during the subsequent two years.

During the 2010 Rio de Janeiro Security Crisis, after BOPE reached strategic points at the top of Vila Cruzeiro hill via tanks driven by Brazilian Marines, Rio's media showed live aerial footage of a multitude of criminals frantically fleeing on foot over the dirt back roads that exited into the Complexo do Alemão. This was the same route that the kidnapped Tim Lopes traveled in a car trunk when he was being transported from Vila Cruzeiro to the Complexo do Alemão.

Several Brazilian journalists visited these favelas in the days after the security forces took control and discussed what the changes meant. (During a time period after Tim Lopes' death, when journalists would enter favelas housing criminal factions associated with the traffickers who killed Lopes, they would sometimes hear “vai ter mais Tim, vai ter mais Tim!" (There will be more Tims!) as a warning insinuating that more reporters could be killed).