At least 30 people were gunned down randomly on the streets of two cities near Rio de Janeiro in killings in which police officiers were suspected, authorities said Friday. Officials said the massacres occurred late Thursday in Nova Iguazu and Queimados. One of the victims was a 7-year-old boy. According to GloboNews, the number of victims could increase to more than 40 because another 14 bodies were found near the areas where the two massacres occurred, but police had not confirmed a link. The shootings began in Nueva Iguazu when four armed men in a car fatally shot 11 people gathered at a bar. The rampage continued in other parts of Nueva Iguazu and in nearby Queimados. The Rio de Janeiro provincial Public Security Ministry was investigating whether the killings were the work of policemen disgruntled by the arrest of eight fellow officers accused of killing two men. Security Secretar Marcelo Itagiba said there was a "strong hypothesis" that police perpetrated the massacres. The killings constituted the worst such massacre in Rio de Janeiro since 1993, when a police death squad killed 21 people in the Vigario Geral slum. --SP 2143 Local Time 1843 GMT
