The hostage rebellion in Manaus prison ended with 17 wounded, says government | Amazon

In a statement, SSP-AM says three officers were wounded by jumping from the walls. Five prisoners and two military policemen were injured during the negotiations, which lasted approximately five hours.

“All the hostages are fine, some are a little injured because they had stocks on their necks. The purpose of this rebellion was to escape, they were digging a tunnel, which they could not do on a daily basis. The troops entered, dominated the jail, no one was seriously injured, only a few policemen were stoned and wounded, “said Security Secretary Colonel Louismar Bonates.

More than a month ago, the Pastoral Carcerria Nacional sent to the Office of the Public Defender of Amazonas and to the State Justice a document that listed several complaints of violations of the rights of the prisoners of the Puraquequara Penitentiary Unit.

The operation to restore order in the unit included personnel from the Penitentiary Intervention Group and specialized troops of the Military Police (Rocam, COE, Mars, CipCães), the Department of Air Operations of the Security Secretariat and the Fire Department.

According to the secretary of the Penitentiary Administration, Colonel Marcos Vinicius, the rebellion occurred after two escape attempts were thwarted. After the riots, police teams carried out an on-site inspection and found the beginning of a tunnel in one of the cells, the SSP said.

“It is necessary to escape, they tried to make two tunnels from the outside to the inside, since they saw that they could not do it, because the internal routine is very strong, they created this whole fund to try to create a distraction and dig the tunnel from the inside out. The tunnel is there, we have already detected it, it has stairs, it has everything and we managed to prevent them from succeeding, ”said Colonel Marcos Vinicius.

According to the SSP, part of the prison unit was destroyed during the rebellion. There was a depredation of bars, fountains, ceilings and bars.

The Secretary of State for Prison Administration (Seap) said it did not rule out transferring prisoners who organized the riots. An investigation will be opened to identify those responsible. At the moment, prisoners are counted and registered within the cells.

Coronaviruses, restrictions and tensions in the system.

In Amazonas, two prisoners tested positive for Covid-19, despite the restrictive measures adopted since the pandemic reached the state. One of the cases was confirmed in the Provisional Detention Center I and the other in a prison in Parintins, inland.

Without visits and living under new restrictions, such as the isolation of newly arrived inmates, the sociologist and researcher of the Laboratory for the Study of Violence of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Ítalo Lima, explained that the escape attempts could be common.