RIO DE JANEIRO — When Cameron DeCort and his family drove from the airport in Rio to their hotel to kick off a week of watching Olympic events, the 15-year-old kept noticing something strange.
“I saw three tanks on the side of the road and a ton of police with rifles,” said the teen from a suburb of Houston.
That was a common sight for tourists arriving in Rio as Brazil has deployed the largest security contingent in Olympic history — up to 100,000 officers — to secure the city of 6.5 million people. With many of them decked out in camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles, it has created a distinctly military feel in a city more accustomed to flip flops and bikinis.
Most of the major roads leading to and from Olympic venues are lined with a combination of military, federal and state police. Teams of motorcycle officers sit in rows around the city, ready to serve as rapid response units. Even the view from iconic Copacabana Beach has been obscured in recent days by a Brazilian navy warship cruising just offshore, visible from inside the Olympic beach volleyball arena.
Some have questioned whether Brazil’s security force, which includes a heavy military component, has amounted to overkill. After all, it’s more than twice the size of the security force at the 2012 London Games.
But José Mariano Beltrame, Rio de Janeiro’s state security secretary, said before the start of the Games that it was perfectly acceptable given the terrorism threats targeting Brazil and the sheer volume of people expected in Rio.
“With an event like the Olympics, the military police of any state of Brazil, or any police in the world doesn’t do this alone,” he said. “Whatever force, be it navy or federal police, will always be very welcome.”
While there have been reports of muggings, assaults and one person shot dead on Friday night outside the opening ceremony, there hasn’t been the kind of widespread mayhem predicted by some leading up to the Games.
Kat Holmes, a U.S. Olympic fencer, said she’s felt completely comfortable since arriving in Rio. She said she’s traveled to some pretty dangerous places for tournaments around the world, including Russia while the country was engaging in an armed conflict with Ukraine and Jordan during the Arab Spring. But she said she’s felt far more comfortable walking around Rio than any of those places.
“I feel safer than I do in D.C.,” said Holmes, a Washington, D.C., native. “There’s definitely a military presence that you sense and feel. But it all seems appropriate given the current world context.”
The influx of armed security has been a welcome sight to many Brazilians who know just how violent their city has become in recent years as the economy has plummeted and political instability has led to widespread protests.
José Barbosa, 69, a drinks vendor who was working on a bike path outside the Olympic rowing venue on Saturday, said the black-clad security forces patrolling around him seemed to be operating smoothly. But, like many Brazilians, he was more worried about what happens after the Games.
“Now because of the Olympics everything is well organized,” Barbosa said. “But after all this, it will get complicated.”
Aline Brasil, 31, a software account manager from São Paulo in Rio for the Games, said she was also impressed with the security she saw around the opening ceremony on Friday night. She and her family got into Maracana Stadium for the opening, and she said officers lined the entire walk from the metro station to the stadium.
She said the officers have even changed their usual demeanor.
“Police here can be very aggressive normally, but so far, they’re being warm,” she said with a laugh.
Brasil cautioned, however, that nothing in her country is ever so simple. She worried about the security forces’ ability to work together and communicate throughout the three weeks of events. She worried about security lapses she heard about outside the Olympic Park on Saturday. And she worried whether her country could truly put all that military might to good use.
“Being Brazilian is very complicated,” she said. “We like beautiful things, but we have a lot of problems with organization. Just look at that opening ceremony – we were able to show the real Brazil. But today, I see the organization isn’t as strong. We always live with that duality. We’re always in search of that equilibrium.”
From : http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2016/08/06/security-forces-rio-olympic-games-rio-de-janeiro/88339014/
