<strong><a href="http://dailythepatriot.com/wp-content/uploads/Sao-Polo.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-19777" src="http://dailythepatriot.com/wp-content/uploads/Sao-Polo.jpg" alt="Sao Polo" width="800" height="480" /></a></strong> SAO PAULO: At least 19 people were shot dead within the span of about three hours in Brazil's biggest metropolitan area, law enforcement officials said on Friday. <p style="color: #252525;">Alexandre de Moraes, the head of the Sao Paulo State Public Safety Department said at a news conference that police are trying to determine if Thursday night's shootings in the suburbs of Osasco, Barueri and Itapevi, on the western outskirts of Sao Paulo, are related.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">He said 15 of the victims were shot dead in Osasco, three were killed in Barueri and one in Itapevi. Seven people were wounded and are hospitalised.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">The mayor of Osasco, Jorge Lapas, told the Globo TV network the killings may have been in reprisal for the recent shooting deaths of two police officers.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">At least 10 of the dead were shot at a bar after hooded men got out of a car and opened fire.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">Not far away, one young man was shot outside an ice cream store. In the area, another man was shot by two men riding a motorcycle.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">Other shootings took place at five other locales.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">Citing witnesses, Moraes said that in at least two instances, gunmen wearing face masks arrived and asked who had criminal histories. Those who said they did were shot.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">Globo News television broadcast security camera footage showing a group of masked assailants entering a bar, ordering clients to raise their hands in the air, then shooting them.</p> <p style="color: #252525;">“We will investigate if the killings were committed by drug traffickers, by off-duty police officers or were acts of vengeance for the recent killings of two police officers.”</p>
