, Columnist
Rio's Been Getting Safer Since Way Before the Olympics
A recent homicide spike belies a decade of progress. That didn't start with the pre-games crackdown.
A lasting improvement?
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Usually, the most challenging part of my Monday routine is navigating Rio de Janeiro traffic, which has become fraught in the run-up to next month's Olympic Games. This week it was the anti-bomb squad.
A block from my daughter's school, police had blockaded four city blocks in Leblon, a tony beachside neighborhood, after a furtive man dumped a small object on the sidewalk and hurried off. Over the scrum of reporters and rubbernecks, I could make out a blue gym bag with an airlines tag that a bomb disposal robot had sniffed and dragged to the street.