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At least three people, including a teenage girl, were killed and 11 others injured when a 16-year-old gunman opened fire at two schools in southeastern Brazil on Friday.
Authorities in the town of Aracruz, Espirito Santo state, said the gunman opened fire on a group of teachers at his former school on Friday morning, killing two people and injuring nine others.
He then dropped out of public primary and secondary school and attended a nearby private school, where he killed a teenage girl and injured two other people, officials said.
Authorities have arrested the shooter, said Governor Renato Casagrande, who declared three days of mourning in the state.
“He was in (first) school until June, a 16-year-old minor. His family then transferred him to another school. We have information that he was undergoing psychiatric treatment,” Casagrande told a news conference.
He said the lives of some of the survivors remained in danger from their injuries.
“We are rooting and praying for recovery,” he said.
Security camera footage broadcast on Brazilian media showed the gunman running into the school dressed in military camouflage and brandishing a gun. He then sprinted through the corridors, sending staff fleeing in panic as he began firing.
Investigators said he had a swastika on his uniform. According to a study by anthropologist Adriana Dias, there are currently about 530 active neo-Nazi cells in the country.
Two teachers and a student are killed after a gunman opened fire in a Brazilian school. At least three people, including a teenage girl, were killed and 11 others injured
Authorities in the town of Aracruz, Espirito Santo state, said the gunman (pictured) opened fire on a group of teachers at his former school on Friday.
The city of Aracruz, in the state of Espirito Santo, is pictured. Governor Renato Casagrande, who declared three days of mourning in the state
Most of the victims were teachers, according to Folha Vitória, a Brazilian news website.
“It is the greatest tragedy our city has ever seen; the whole town is shocked. At the public school, all the victims are teachers. It’s sad,” said Aracruz Mayor Dr. Coutinho, quoted in the newspaper. “We’re already getting reinforcements from security, classes are suspended until Monday.”
Officials said the gunman, the son of a police officer, used two handguns in the attack, both registered to his father – one his service firearm, the other a privately registered one.
Casagrande said the boy carefully planned the attack by breaking in through a locked door and going past the school’s security guard.
He then entered the teachers’ lounge — the first room he entered — and opened fire, the governor said.
“He wanted to shoot people. He opened fire on the first people he encountered,” he said.
Investigators were seen carrying victims’ bodies in coffins and loading them into police cars outside the school, which had been cordoned off with crime scene tape, an AFP photographer said.
The city has about 100,000 inhabitants. School shootings are relatively rare in Brazil, but have been on the rise in recent years.
The deadliest school shooting in Brazil killed 12 children in 2011 when a man opened fire at his former primary school in Realengo, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, and then killed himself.
In 2019, two former students shot and killed eight people at a high school in Suzano, outside Sao Paulo, and then took their own lives.
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called the latest shootings an “absurd tragedy.”
“I was saddened when I heard about the attacks,” he wrote on Twitter.
Police officers stand at the entrance to Primo Bitti State School, one of two schools where a shooting occurred
A police officer stands guard as locals gather outside the police station where the perpetrator of two Aracruz school shootings is being held
“All my solidarity with the families of the victims… and my support to Governor Casagrande for the investigation and assistance to the two school communities.”
Lula, who previously served as Brazil’s president from 2003 to 2010, will take office on January 1 after defeating far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in elections last month.
He has sharply criticized Bolsonaro’s dramatic crackdown on gun control laws.
Since ex-army captain Bolsonaro became president in 2019, the number of registered gun owners in Brazil has increased more than fivefold, from 117,000 to 673,000, boosted by a series of presidential decrees relaxing the rules on firearms and ammunition.
Public security expert Bruno Langeani of Sou da Paz research institute told AFP that the policies of the outgoing government had made such attacks more likely.
“The increase in the availability of firearms in recent years, promoted by the Bolsonaro government, makes these kinds of episodes possible,” he said.
Espirito Santo state governor Renato Casagrande speaks to the press after a shootout at two schools in Aracruz