A man has taken at least 18 people hostage at the Rio de Janeiro bus station, in the city center, this Tuesday afternoon.
According to the first information, among the hostages there are elderly people and children.
The Military Police mobilized the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE), and the entire station area was evacuated and cordoned off.
According to police information collected by the local press, the man shot two people before barricading himself in a bus in the terminal parking lot.
One of the victims, a man, has received gunshot wounds to the thorax and abdomen and, according to the Souza Aguiar hospital, where he was transferred, his life is in danger.
The Secretary of Public Security of the state of Rio, Victor César, has stated that there is a negotiator who is trying to open a channel of dialogue with the kidnapper.
According to witness accounts, the hostages were inside a bus that was headed to the city of Juiz de Fora, in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais, and that had already left the station.
After traveling about 500 meters, the air conditioning stopped working, so the driver decided to return to fix it.
Upon arriving at the station, some passengers decided to get off because of the heat, and that was when the kidnapper, who was already in the vehicle, fired several shots.
A witness, Carlos Saraiva, has claimed to have seen the moment when the man took out the gun with which he fired the shots and threatened the passengers: “I was on the platform when the boy took out the gun, started shooting, shot the boy. and entered the bus.
I have two friends who are inside the bus.
Everyone is desperate, we don't know what is going to happen,” he stated in statements to the G1 portal.
Kidnappings of this type, relatively frequent in Rio in the 1990s, have long ceased to be part of the daily routine of Cariocas.
However, in recent months there have been several similar incidents.
In January, in the same area, a bus was hijacked by a group that forced the driver to deviate 16 kilometers from his route.
They stole all the belongings of the driver and 20 other passengers.
At the end of December, five other men (the police are investigating whether they are from the same gang) also entered a bus that was arriving at the station and forced the driver to advance to the Complexo do Maré, a group of favelas dominated by the drug trafficking.
According to police, at least three Chinese tourists lost their cell phones, money and passports.
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