Street gang burned 14 municipal buses and two police cars in Brazil's Manaus

A street gang set 14 municipal buses and two police cars on fire in the Brazilian city of Manaus on Sunday, after a gang member was killed by police during a raid. The gang issued a warning to residents via social media to "stay off the streets or face execution" after the death of "Dadinho", son of a leader of the "Red Command" (Comando Vernelho), during the police raid.

Burned buses littered a terminal near downtown Manaus, and one was seen burning on a city street, while some banks and businesses were damaged and looted by rampaging gang members. A security guard filmed the burning bus from a store where he worked across the street, saying the gang members were heavily armed when they came into the area.

"I heard them during the early morning hours and last night when the gang members set the buses on fire, and they were cruising the city in their vehicles around Manaus," said Alan Emerson Santiago Barbosa.

The Red Command is known for its heavy involvement in drug and weapons trafficking, a key conduit for weapons and drugs arriving from nearby Colombia and Venezuela before being shipped on to the U.S. and southern Latin America. The gang maintains control of favelas through intimidation and violence, clashing with security forces in sometimes heavy shootouts in the streets of the country's cities.

The Governor of Amazonas,  Wilson Lima, declared a "state of emergency," deploying extra police and other security forces into the streets of the city to quell the violence, but residents spent much of Sunday indoors and off the streets after the threats issued by the gang to attack anyone found outside their homes. The Red Command is the same gang targeted in Rio de Janeiro last month in a police raid that led to the deaths of 28 people and one policeman in a local favela.