americas
A DETEL vehicle serves as an improvised radio gateway to support the Complexo do Alemão raid. Extra TETRA network capacity was needed because of the
large requirement for voice
communication during this complex, multi-agency operation
“In our organization here, we have people from Fire
Department, from Police Department, military police, the civilian [police]. Tese people go to the eye of the hurricane.” Alongside DETEL staff, engineers from Teltronic Brazil,
supplier of the SIRCE network, worked night and day on the technical preparations. Tey programmed and activated some 130 additional on-board radios for armoured vehicles and motorcycles; prepared and activated a repeater site to improve radio coverage in the conflict zones; created a new radio link between this site and an existing one, and set up gateways to allow communications inside the armoured vehicles. When the day dawned, the authorities swept in with
massive force, in tanks and armoured cars. In photos taken by Lt-Col Cajueiro, it looks like the biggest of Hollywood action spectaculars. In Rio, the Complexo do Alemão had become a
kind of black legend, and many hoped to see its evils purged. “It was a special day”, he remembers, with pride. “People put flags in their windows. People saluted us as heroes! “I interrupted my own vacation to go to the operation.
Many people who were off-duty or were at home went to the place. Many old police officers, with white hair or no hair, went to it – ‘I’m here to be against the criminals, to destroy this place! I’m here to contribute!’ It was a very special day.”
Staying alive Numerous arrests and seizures were made, but police videos also show men fleeing into the surrounding districts. “Many people seeing these images ask us, ‘Why you don’t shoot get these guys?’ ”, Lt-Col Cajueiro says, breaking off from his commentary for a moment. “But it’s not the function of a police department. We have to arrest, not to kill people escaping.” Today the favelas are more peaceful, but – with the support
of the radiocommunications network – there remains much to do. “Te numbers of deaths, the ratio, is going down to a more normal level”, he adds. “But we understand that it is not a common use of police. “Sometimes you are on a beach with beautiful girls,
sometimes you are with an old woman or helping children – and other times you are on Omaha Beach during D-Day, with rockets and bombs and grenades and shooting. After some minutes you are OK and you are going into Rio de Janeiro again. You go home and your family is waiting for you, children, dogs and your wife. “Sometimes we go to the cemetery for our friends, maybe
TV cameras focus on a haul of narcotics seized during the raid 28
every month... many times, more than once. We are Brazilians and we like to play and to joke, but our responsibility for many lives is a weight on our shoulders of many tons. “So we expect that this system will help our people to be safe – to stay alive.”
TE TRA TODAY Issue 4 2011
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