BRASÍLIA—It was supposed to have been a peaceful day, though police expected demonstrations on the vast, grassy Esplanade where Brazil’s three branches of power are located.
Adilson Paz said goodbye to his two teenage boys and headed to work as chief of the legislative police at the modernist lower house of Congress. He said he thought he would be home by dark that Sunday, Jan. 8.
Instead, protesters opposed to the new leftist government of President
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
had by midday congregated by the tens of thousands. At 2:45 p.m., they knocked back the metal barriers some 200 yards from Congress. Hundreds then busted through glass doors and onto the granite floors leading to the chambers where lawmakers, out on recess, normally convened, Mr. Paz said.
A fire extinguisher was discharged on sculptor Alfredo Ceschiatti’s bronze statue. Protesters unfurled emergency water hoses and flooded the green carpeting. They overturned chairs. A soccer ball signed by Brazilian striker Neymar was stolen, police said, as well as a golden shell Qatar gave Brazil.
And they battled with Mr. Paz’s officers.
“On the front line, they were wearing masks, to protect themselves from the gas,” Mr. Paz said last week, speaking of tear gas and pepper spray, as he gave a tour of the building. “Lots of people in camouflage clothes, with sticks, with stones. They were ready for battle.”
A broad-ranging investigation into the invasion of Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court that day has resulted in more than 1,800 people being arrested and prompted investigators to open probes against former high-ranking government officials, the federal police and prosecutors say.
The most prominent target is the right-wing former president,
Jair Bolsonaro,
who prosecutors say incited the violence by not conceding his election loss to Mr. da Silva in the Oct. 30 presidential elections and asserting for months before the vote that it could be stolen, without offering evidence.
But while some government officials say the riot was part of plan to unseat Mr. da Silva, using Bolsonaro supporters as front-line troopers, it isn’t yet clear to investigators what were its political objectives, if any.
“This is an investigation of extraordinary dimensions,” Carlos Frederico Santos, the…
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