Suspected drug traffickers shot down a police helicopter and set fire to five buses and a school in Rio de Janeiro today, killing two policemen, Reuters quoted police and media as saying. It is one of the worst recent outbreaks of violence in Rio and comes two weeks after the city was awarded the 2016 Olympic Games, despite worries over its high levels of violence and poor security. Traffickers set fire to the buses in response to a police operation against them, the O Globo network said on its website, which showed pictures of the destroyed helicopter and buses on fire. It reported that three suspected criminals were also killed. "The helicopter was hit by criminals and the pilot made a forced landing on a football pitch," Major Oderlei Santos of the military police told Reuters. The helicopter had been carrying six police officers as part of an operation in one of Rio's hundreds of slums, which are dominated by heavily armed drug gangs, police said. They said the helicopter exploded after it landed and that the four surviving officers were wounded, suffering from burns.
