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Police Tactics Under Increased Scrutiny at World Cup

Protesters in Brazil accused the police of using excessive force to prevent a small group of demonstrators opposed to what they call lavish spending on the World Cup from reaching the stadium in São Paulo where the tournament began on Thursday afternoon.

The policing of protests became a central issue during last summer’s Confederations Cup soccer tournament, when anger over police brutality seemed to serve as a catalyst for larger demonstrations. The authorities argued that they were forced to intervene when demonstrations turned into riots, but protesters said that their movement had been infiltrated by undercover officers who provoked violence to give the security forces a pretext to use force.

With the world’s news media attention focused on Brazil and the police under scrutiny during the World Cup, the challenge for authorities is to contain the protests without inflaming them.

Among those injured Thursday when the police fired canisters of tear gas and stun grenades at the protesters was a CNN producer, Barbara Arvanitidis. Video of the fusillade by the police broadcast by CNN appeared to show that it came without warning and that the canisters were fired at the crowd from close quarters.

Witnesses, including the NPR News correspondent Lulu Garcia-Navarro and Dan Rivers of Britain’s ITV, reported that the police had fired directly at the crew, without warning.

Ms. Arvanitidis later shared a photograph on Twitter showing a deep gash in her left arm, caused by the impact of a stun grenade.

Video shot by activists last week in São Paulo showed the police using force to disperse striking transit workers at a metro station.

Reports of excessive police force have also tarnished the so-called pacification of urban slums, or favelas, by Brazil’s military police force, which has deployed officers to neighborhoods to wrest control from gangs.

Despite some signs of success, the sound of gunfire is still frequent in the favelas, as a scan of the local news media shows. The headline “Shots Frighten Residents of Rocinha,” in reference to a notorious Rio de Janeiro neighborhood, has been used in news reports at least once a month every month since December.

Last month, one shootout in Rocinha was documented in footage posted on YouTube by a resident of the favela; it ended with an image of a dead body lying in an alley.

According to the police, the dead man was a criminal who had fired on officers before being shot and killed. The same incident was also documented in video recorded by one officer, who turned the camera on himself to gloat about the killing. The officer’s footage was later shared on WhatsApp.

That gun battle was also reported on Twitter by an opponent of the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro who accused Brazil’s government of waging war in the favelas and lying about security ahead of the tournament.

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