BLOODIED BRAZILIAN POLICE FORCE STRIKES BACK

SO PAULO, Brazil -- Police launched a counterattack Tuesday against
gangs rampaging through South America's largest city. At least 33
suspects were killed; police reported one death of their own after
dozens of law officers were killed in the preceding days.

The violence erupted Friday night when authorities transferred eight
leaders of a drug gang to a maximum-security prison to isolate them.
Gang members attacked police stations, courts, city buses and other
symbols of government. Prison inmates rioted.

At least 133 people, including 40 police officers and prison guards,
have been killed since Friday night.

Gang attacks fell off sharply Tuesday, but the death toll rose
dramatically as authorities announced the deaths of the 33 suspects.
That brought the total number of gang members or suspects killed to
71.

Officers "acted within the law, but that doesn't mean we have to let
them humiliate us," said Marco Antonio Desgualdo, a top So Paulo state
law enforcement official. He did not give specifics about the killings.

Separately, prison officials said the bodies of 18 inmates were
recovered after police retook control of dozens of lockups where
prisoners rioted.

Details about how they died were not disclosed, though inmates in
Brazilian prisons periodically take advantage of uprisings to settle
scores.

Four civilians in So Paulo also died in crossfire between gang members
and police.

Police were deployed in greater numbers across So Paulo, a city of 18
million, and its suburbs to halt the attacks.

In Osasco, about 10 miles from the city center, police stopped and
frisked motorists. Officer Vladimir Storel said police there focused
on motorcyclists because a policeman was killed by a gunman riding on
the back of a motorbike.