Rash of lynchings shocks Brazil

A rash of lynchings of suspected criminals has shocked even violence-hardened Brazilians, baring dark undercurrents in the land of sun and samba.

The latest incident took place in the western outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday night, when vigilantes tied up and badly beat a man accused of stealing a woman's cellphone, Brazilian media reported Friday.

A picture of the man, reported to be 31, showed him curled upon the ground, shirtless, with his hands tied behind his back and what appeared to be blood on the ground around his head. He was rescued by police, but there was no immediate information on his condition.

An even more shocking picture was published earlier this week of a young man killed after being tied naked to a lamp post and hit with stones, bottles and other weapons.

The man, 29, was lynched Monday after being accused of trying to rob a bar in the far northeastern town of Sao Luis de Maranhao. An adolescent accomplice was also lynched but rescued after playing dead.

Brazilians are used to extreme violence, with heavily armed police confronting drug gangs in Rio and other cities daily. Lynchings are also something of a tradition in a huge country of almost 203 million where the police are far from always trusted.

However, the widespread media coverage of the latest incidents provoked sharp reactions and underlined the climate of insecurity a year before Rio hosts the 2016 Olympic Games.

The daily newspaper Extra grabbed attention by juxtaposing a picture of the dead man in Luis de Maranhao with an illustration of a slave tied to a whipping post -- images recalling deeply rooted problems of racism in Brazil.

"How can they sleep at night," asks the young man's family on the Extra Facebook page.

"Assaulting and lynching. 'Good people' killing -- it's a bit of a paradox, isn't it?" said one reader in the Facebook exchange.

But many of the hundreds joining the online debate supported vigilante justice.

"Brazilian society is steeped in impunity and in this bandit state where we live criminals have the same rights as any citizen. That's why lynchings are becoming more and more common," one reader wrote.

Nowhere in Brazil is considered immune from violent crime.

In Rio de Janeiro's business district, one of the most heavily policed areas in the entire country, many residents consider it unsafe to walk at night.

A shootout on Friday in the central Uruguaiana metro station left one man dead.

The area has seen 56 murders in the first five months of 2015, double the number in the same period last year, according to latest official statistics. Across the city of 6.3 million, there have been 534 murders between January and May, slightly down on last year.

Those numbers help explain the fear on city streets -- and the sometimes harsh opinions over the lynchings.

"I think it's justice," said cheese vendor Edgard Mendes Vieira, 50, as he ended his daily shift outside central Rio's Carioca metro station. "There's complete impunity here. We don't have enough police. Here you see them but in the provinces there are hardly any."

But Volmir Duraes, getting his shoes shined nearby, was troubled.

"We're going back in time," said Duraes, 60, sadly.