2) Carandiru Massacre, Sao Paulo – 1992
Carandiru was a prison in Sao Paulo built to house around 3,500 inmates. In 1992 the actual number of prisoners within Carandiru’s walls was closer to 8,000.
If you put a bunch of people in conditions like that it’s just a matter of time before the pressure cooker explodes, and explode it did. The police were in no mood for negotiations and simply started firing into the rioters.
By the end 111 prisoners were dead (102 of which were killed by the police); no police officers died. There were reports of police officers shooting prisoners who were hiding from the riots in their cells, the massacre is now considered one of the worst human rights violations in Brazilian history.
The commanding officer of the operation, Colonel Ubiratan Guimarães, was sentenced to 632 years in prison for his mishandling of the rebellion and subsequent massacre. Despite the firm sentencing, a little bit of legal wrangling managed to get Guimarães off the hook on a technicality. However, revenge was served cold to Guimarães, he was assassinated in 2006.
The prison was demolished in 2002 and a series of trials which ran from 2013-2014 saw more than 60 police officers sent to jail with life sentences. I don’t expect they will have a very nice time behind bars at all.
