Resolving high-risk situations with a minimum loss of life, injury, or property damage;
Engage strongly armed criminal factions.
Weapons and vehicles
The force has a fleet of armoured fighting vehicles, which are known as "Pacificador", or "Caveirão" and one UH-1 Huey. These vehicles are used in operations in the slums where BOPE face intense conflicts with heavily armed drug dealers. BOPE also operates a wheel loader in order to remove obstacles, barricades and street blockades. BOPE soldiers are equipped with heavy armament:
BOPE has generated notoriety due to their role in the violent drug war in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and they have been referred to as a "Death Squad" by multiple newspapers. One aspect that has been pointed out specifically is their logo, which bears a knife in a skull over crossed pistols. According to the official BOPE website, the knife in the skull symbolizes "victory over death" and the crossed pistols are the symbol of the military police. A 2005 report on extra judicial executions by the New York University School of Law indicated that BOPE was involved in the deaths of 4 teenagers under the pretext that they were drug traffickers who were resisting arrest: "BOPE officers falsified the crime scene in order to incriminate the victims. Hoping this way to make them appear to be gang members. No weapon was found on any of the victims. None of them had any previous history of criminal activity." Amnesty International declared that "the police forces in Brazil adopt violent and repressive methods. These cause violations of fundamental rights of large parts of the population on a regular basis", and attributes a certain number of killed civilians to BOPE in particular. In March 2006, Amnesty International specifically condemned the use of vans with armoured plating, known as a Caveirão. It stated that deploying the vehicle aggressively, indiscriminately targeting whole communities, highlighted the ineffectiveness of excessive use of force.
In 2006, the book Elite da Tropa was published. Written by sociologistLuiz Eduardo Soares and two BOPE officers, Major André Batista and Captain Rodrigo Pimentel, it provides a semi-fictional account of the daily routine of BOPE as well as some historical events, based on the experiences of the latter two. It describes BOPE as a "killing machine" and details an alleged aborted assassination attempt by some police officers on then-governor Leonel Brizola. The book was controversial at the time of release, and reportedly resulted in Batista being reprimanded and censored by the Military Police. The book has been made into a movie, Tropa de Elite, directed by José Padilha, with a screenplay by Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Bráulio Mantovani. In 2010 the movie gained a sequel, . Two BOPE operators make an appearance in "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege" as playable operators. These operators are Capitão and Caveira. OPES is a Brazilian special police unit in the online first-person shooter CrossFire. The OPES logo features a skull and a knife similar to that of the BOPE. The OPES were introduced with the release of the 2011 Brazilian release of the game. BOPE is featured on Season 1, Episode 2 of Elite World Cops, a television show hosted by former SAS soldier and author Chris Ryan.
