Helicopter downed as 12 killed in Rio violence

By Stuart Grudgings

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, killing two officers, and 10 suspected gang members were killed in the city's worst recent outbreak of violence, police said.

The violence, in which authorities said 8 buses were set on fire by suspected traffickers and 6 police officers wounded, came only two weeks after the Brazilian city was awarded the 2016 Olympic Games despite worries over high levels of violence.

The helicopter carrying six crew came down after its pilot was hit in the leg by a bullet as it flew over the "Hill of Monkeys" slum in the city's north zone, where police were responding to a gun battle between rival gangs, Major Oderlei Santos of the military police told Reuters.

He said it was the first time that a police helicopter had been shot down and destroyed in Rio.

Despite being wounded, the pilot managed to land the aircraft on a football pitch but it then exploded in flames, killing two officers and wounding the other four crew members, including the pilot, one of them gravely.

The 10 suspected traffickers were killed by police and in the gun battle between rival gangs. Four residents were wounded by stray bullets, police said.

A Reuters photographer at the slum said he saw three bodies laid out on the ground. Residents said the three were not drug traffickers and had been caught in a cross-fire.

"It was a night of chaos. ... We are still really scared," 17-year-old slum resident Cristina Soares was quoted as saying by the O Globo newspaper's website.