Gangs of Rio de Janeiro

Kid killers on the loose in the blistering City of God

The toughest thug in the Rio slum of Cidade de Deus stands impatiently outside a brothel as his gang robs the patrons. Miffed at being excluded from the fun, he strides in and kills everyone. It's his first mass murder--the ideal calling card for a precocious psychopath. Li'l Ze, as he will come to be known, is 9 years old.

Virtually all the punks in the City of God hood are teenage or younger. To be older is to be dead--killed for any reason or none, by rivals or the horde of infant pretenders. A kind of Menudo Mean Streets, Fernando...

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