It was a night of bloodshed in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo as 19 people were killed in a spree of attacks.
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Citing witnesses, Mr de Moraes said that in at least two instances, gunmen wearing face masks arrived and asked who had criminal histories.
Masked men entered a bar in Brazil and shot dead patrons in cold blood, in one of 11 seemingly co-ordinated attacks on the outskirts of Sao Paulo overnight.
De Moraes said investigators had analysed spent cartridges to establish whether the shooters were from “a single group” and had determined there were in fact two groups. The string of shootings reportedly occurred in Osasco and other neighborhoods in and around São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and financial capital.
Osasco mayor Jorge Lapas said video footage supported a theory the killings could have been reprisals for the earlier death of a police officer.
Not far away, one young man was shot outside an ice cream store.
“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”.
A spokesman for the security forces earlier described the wave of killings late on Thursday as “unusual”.
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Another two people were killed an hour later in a city park. In 2012, the most recent year with comprehensive data, the Brazil government says it registered 47,000 murders although the World Health Organization estimated the figure as 64,000.
