(29 Nov 2012)
19 November 2012
1. Pan across Dona Marta favela to police overlooking area from balcony
2. Military police armed with tazers
3. Close of tazer on police belt
4. Tilt up from police walking through shantytown
5. Children running past police in narrow streets of Dona Marta
20 NOVEMBER 2012
++QUALITY AS INCOMING++
6. Wide of Rio de Janeiro Military Police Colonel Frederico Caldas
7. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Frederico Caldas, Brazilian Military Police Colonel:
"The military police of Rio de Janeiro began this substitution programme of the rifles. Up until now we have replaced 273 rifles, removed especially from street patrols. The idea is that, because of the pacification process, it does not make much sense any more for the police to carry a highly lethal weapon during street patrols."
19 November 2012
8. Wide of residents walking past police in Dona Marta shantytown
9. Close of tazers
10. Tilt down from Dona Marta shantytown to police
11. Mid of tazer
20 November 2012
12. Wide of security expert Julita Lemgruber at the Centre for Studies on Security and Citizenship
13. SOUNDBITE (Portuguese) Julita Lemgruber, security expert:
"This removal of the rifles from the streets of the southern part of the city represents a very important step towards breaking the sensation that this city is a city at war."
FILE: Rocinha shantytown, Rio de Janeiro - 2011 (exact date unknown)
++NIGHT SHOTS++
14. Various of police with rifles during pacification program
FILE: 2011 - exact location and date unknown
++DAY SHOTS++
15. Various of police in streets with rifles
STORYLINE
Residents of recently pacified favelas, or shantytowns, in Rio de Janeiro, will no longer see military police patrolling the area with rifles.
Approximately 273 rifles of 556 caliber have been replaced by handguns and tazers.
The aim is to gradually substitute these highly lethal weapons in areas where they are no longer needed.
"The idea is that, because of the pacification process, it does not make much sense any more for the police to carry a highly lethal weapon during street patrols," said Military Police Colonel Frederico Caldas.
The Dona Marta favela, the first shantytown to be pacified and freed from its former drug lords in December 2008, is one of the few where police no longer carry the heavy rifles.
According to military police, since its pacification there have been no recorded murders or shootings.
Julita Lemgruber, an expert on security from the Centre for Studies on Security and Citizenship, believes it's a significant step.
"This removal of the rifles from the streets of the southern part of the city represents a very important step towards breaking the sensation that this city is a city at war."
Nevertheless, Lemgruber said that progress was so far limited to the south zone of Rio de Janeiro.
In other areas, heavy rifles are still being used daily by both police and criminals.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday praised a resolution by Brazil's Human Rights Defence Council that outlined steps to help reduce extrajudicial killings by police.
In a report, the New York-based rights advocacy group said that Brazilian police routinely "engage in unlawful violence, executing people and falsely claiming they died in shootouts."
In a 2009 report, the organisation estimated some 11,000 people were killed by police between 2003-2009 in the country's two largest cities, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, alone.
A 2008 United Nations report found that police throughout Brazil were responsible for a "significant portion" of 48,000 killings the year before.
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