Police stormed a maximum-security prison with only billy clubs and tear gas, putting down a three-day uprising and freeing more than 600 hostages, all without causing casualties. Police moved in late on Wednesday after inmates failed to honour an agreement to free their captives and after intelligence reports indicated the convicts were digging a tunnel and planning to escape on New Year's Day.
More than 600 men, women and children, most of whom were visiting the prison when the uprising began on Sunday, were rescued on Wednesday. Some complained that the police were rough but all were glad to be free.
The inmates began the revolt to protest overcrowding at the facility.
One police agent was injured in the raid on the Sorocaba prison but there were no casualties among the inmates or hostages during the raid, said the prison systems administrator, Mr Joao Benedito de Azevedo Marques.
Still, the death toll in the standoff, the second uprising at Sorocaba in 1997, stood at three because two inmates and one visitor died before the facility was stormed. The more than 500 women and children who had been held captive were the first to emerge from the prison after the 40-minute raid. Police forced the male hostages to disrobe to ensure that no inmates escaped by masquerading as visitors.
"The soldiers rushed inside swinging their wooden clubs at any man they came across, without asking if they were inmates or visitors," said Ms Marli Cristiane Gomes, whose husband was serving time in the prison.