Brazilian police have arrested a man suspected of involvement in the shooting of a British tourist, Eloise Dixon, during an operation in which two other men were killed.

Dixon, 46, was shot twice on 6 August when her family’s hire car failed to stop for drug gang members in Água Santa, a low-income community near the tourist port of Angra dos Reis, a three-hour drive from Rio de Janeiro.

Police named the suspect as Jackson Ferreira Lima, also known as JK, and said he was arrested on Saturday after a gunfight during a police operation in Sapinhatuba 3, a low-income community in Angra. The two men who were killed have not been named.

Colonel Castro, the commander of the Angra military police battalion, said officers went to the community looking for possible suspects and were “received with gunfire”.

He added: “Two elements were shot because each one had a pistol, and both of these died.” Lima, who was wanted in connection with other crimes, was wounded in the operation and being held in Japuíba hospital, where Dixon was treated.

A kilo of crack cocaine, three pistols, ammunition and marijuana were seized in the operation, police said.

Dixon was hit in the thorax and abdomen after the car her husband, Maxwell, was driving entered Água Santa when the family were looking for refreshments. Neither he nor the couple’s three daughters were injured, and Dixon has since been released from hospital.

The case has sent shockwaves along Brazil’s Green Coast, a popular tourist destination, putting pressure on police to capture those responsible.

Since the shooting, Castro said, military police had been carrying out operations in other communities in Angra dos Reis that are controlled by Red Command, a drug gang that has extended its operations across Rio state and into other parts of Brazil. He said Red Command controlled a drugs sales point a few yards inside Água Santa.

Det Bruno Gilaberte from Brazil’s civil police, the force that handles criminal investigations, said Lima was being investigated for possible involvement in Dixon’s shooting, but stressed that he had been detained because there were already arrest warrants for him.

“He is being investigated but his arrest was not because of Eloise,” Gilaberte said. He said he expected to release more information later this week on the three men believed to have been involved in the shooting.

“This week I will publicise the participation of all of those involved and we will provide a clearer idea of what happened,” Gilaberte said.