Brazil police strife threatens biggest Carnivals

SALVADOR, Brazil — About 300 striking police officers and their relatives held out Tuesday as soldiers blockaded a state legislature building in northeastern Brazil, and public worker leaders threatened a strike in Rio de Janeiro that could threaten the world's largest Carnival celebration.

About 1,000 soldiers and officers from an elite federal police unit ringed the legislature in the Bahia state capital of Salvador, Brazil's third-largest city with 2.7 million people and a scheduled host for matches during the 2014 World Cup.

Negotiations failed to end the strike in Salvador, officials said, and authorities in Rio de Janeiro also were preparing for police discontent there.

Officials put up protective fences and posted riot police around Rio's state legislature as lawmakers prepared to vote on a 39 percent raise for police, firefighters and prison guards, all of whom were threatening to strike Friday. The raise would increase an officer's starting salary to $964 a month.

Police, firefighters and others planned to meet Thursday to decide whether to start a strike that could cripple Rio's Carnival celebrations, which pump more than $500 million into the city's economy and attracts upward of 800,000 tourists.

Discontent among police is widespread across Brazil. Many officers complain of low pay and dangerous conditions in a country that recorded nearly 50,000 homicides in 2010.

In Salvador, the striking officers, some armed with handguns, were demanding pay raises and amnesty for what a judge ruled an illegal work stoppage.

Authorities said some children and wives of officers were inside the building, but it was not clear how many. Some left during the previous 24 hours.

Alcione Cruz, a 34-year-old maid, stood outside the legislature building, anxiously awaiting news from her husband, a police officer on strike.

"I'm praying to God that this situation will end and he'll come home," she said, declining to give her husband's name, fearing retribution from the government. "My husband is strong and courageous and I know he and others will stay until the very end."

About one-third of the 30,000 police in Bahia state went on strike a week ago, and murders in the capital's metropolitan area immediately spiked to double normal rates. Official say there have been at least 100 murders since Jan. 31, when the strike began.

But violence has lessened since some 2,000 troops and 600 elite federal police were sent in Sunday and began patrolling Salvador in armored personnel carriers.