RIO DE JANEIRO -- Human Rights Watch said Thursday that a pattern of covering up police killings has thwarted efforts to curb violence in Rio de Janeiros slums ahead of the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.Many of the people killed by police in recent years were unarmed, in custody or trying to flee, according to the 109-page report. Authorities have said that in most cases, the police had come under attack, but prosecutors told the rights group that in the majority of the cases there was no confrontation.The city is gearing up for the Olympic Games that begin on Aug. 5, with security as one of the main concerns. Rights groups have condemned the increasing use of excessive force in slums and outlying areas. Human Rights Watch said the lack of investigation and prosecution of officers to some extent unraveled a security overhaul that had shown progress.You cant be an effective police officer in a community if people distrust you, fear you, they even hate you, said Daniel Wilkinson, managing director of the Americas division at the organization. Its compromising any effort to improve public security and fulfill this promise for the Olympics.Rio police have had a long track record of carrying out extrajudicial killings with more than 8,000 deaths by law enforcement since 2006. However, Wilkinson said police killings dropped from 2007 to 2013 after an effort to reduce crime in violent slums through the use of a new community police force.But police killings have been rising in the past three years in Rio de Janeiro state, with 645 people killed in officer-involved shootings in 2015, compared to 416 in 2013.They failed to deal with this basic problem, which is that there are a lot of cases of police executing people, Wilkinson said. Theres almost zero accountability. These cases arent investigated, they are not prosecuted and people can get away with them. It was no surprise that after initial progress, the problem of police killings started to bounce back.The rate of 3.9 police killings per 100,000 people in 2015 is almost five times that of South Africas and nearly 10 times that of the U.S.The New York-based rights group interviewed 34 current and former police officers who detailed a culture of combat that rewards them for killing instead of arresting drug-trafficking suspects. They said they covered up killings by planting guns on victims, or removing them from crime scenes to deliver dead people at hospitals, destroying evidence in the process.The organization said it studied 64 cases and found that forensic evidence in half of them was inconsistent with officials accounts. Autopsies in 20 cases showed the dead had been shot at close range, something not typical of shootouts. The report also showed that Rio police killed five people for each person they injured from 2013 to 2015, a number the group says is the opposite of what one would expect.The investigative police are usually tasked with investigating police killings, but detectives often do not visit the scenes of the deaths or even interview all of the officers involved, the report said, adding that prosecutors filed charges in only 15 of the 3,441 police killings between 2010 and 2015.Wilkinson said some recent changes in the justice system bear some promise, such as turning officer-involved killings over to the states homicide division instead of neighborhood precincts. The group also recommends increasing the number of prosecutors who investigate only police abuse and improving internal investigations within the police.Rio de Janeiro state security officials did not respond to a request for comment. Nike Air Max 1 Sale Uk . 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Just that look in her eye.And to think, if at least one team had its way, Augustus never would have been there for the Lynx in Game 2 of the WNBA Finals on Tuesday night, when her fourth-quarter scoring flurry helped Minnesota turn back a rally by the Los Angeles Sparks and even the best-of-five series at one game apiece.In the spring of 2011, the Lynx were a team that had never won a playoff series in their 12 years of existence. After they chose Moore with the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, second-year coach Cheryl Reeve said she got a call from Augustus, the teams longest-tenured and most accomplished star.Other teams called her tampering with her, tried to lure her away and said, `Hey its going to be Maya Moores team. Its not going to be your team. You should probably leave now, Reeve recalled this week. When `Mone called me and told me, that was a sign of her selflessness.That attitude has embodied the Lynx during their run to five WNBA Finals appearances in the last six years. They are a team packed with All-Stars, including four Olympians for Team USA that have shared the spotlight and watched their individual statistics dip in deference to group success.As the finals shift to Los Angeles for Games 3 and 4, the Lynx are two wins away from becoming the first back-to-back champions since 2002. It would also give Minnesota its fourth title overall, which would be tied with the Houston Comets for most in league history.Reeve declined to name the team that allegedly tampered with Augustus, but said the same organization has shown a pattern of flouting the rules over the years. In one instance, Reeve said the Lynx logged a complaint with WNBA security after one of the opponents ball kids was caught leaning in to team huddles during the game to eavesdrop. Reeve also said the opponent has been known to send a team employee into the visitors locker room after the game has started to take photos of the strategies drawn on white boards in the room.ddddddddddddeeve said she has had conversations with the coach to smooth things out, but has spread the word to other teams to be on the lookout for suspicious practices.This group of people, as it turns out, they do things a little more shadily, if you will, Reeve said. It was a pattern that I was alerted to then. I think more than anything what I got out of it is Seimones loyalty. She didnt have to tell us. Im sure a lot of players get that. But Ive just become more aware and we keep our eyes on it. Overall we got a kick out of it because of Seimones reaction to them. They looked bad.Augustus did stay with the Lynx and together they won their first championship in Moores rookie season. They also won titles in 2013 and 2015.Seimone has always been committed to this franchise, Reeve said. Even when times were a little more lean and she was frustrated, shes always been committed to it.Augustus did not play well in their series-opening loss to the Sparks. But she rebounded to score 14 points in an emphatic 79-60 victory in Game 2 that tied the series. Nine of those points came in the fourth quarter after the Sparks had whittled a 17-point deficit to just three points in the third.We were in this position before last year, and the thing for us is we know what we needed to do, Augustus said. Not saying that LA didnt capitalize on the mistakes that we made, but there were a lot of empty possessions where they were able to get out in transition and spark their offense, a lot of defensive possessions where we had a lot of miscommunication. Those are simple things that we can clean up, but those are key details that can cost you the game.As the Lynx head to LA for Game 3 on Friday night, they dont have to worry about the Sparks pulling any tricks on them.That other team, Reeve said with a grin, didnt make it this far.Im a big karma person, she said. And karma has caught up to them in different ways. ' ' '