A student was shot and two others were injured after a classmate opened fire at a school in Brazil on Monday – two weeks after warning of an attack.
Giovanna Bezerra, 17, was shot in the head at close range by a 16-year-old freshman at Sao Paulo’s Sapopemba State School, shocking video footage showed.
A school principal later intercepted the gunman and disarmed him before taking him to the principal’s office, where he was held until police arrived.
Emily Silva, 16, and Fernanda Rebeiro were each shot twice and rushed to Sapopemba General Hospital.
Gabriel Polloni, 18, suffered a cut to the hand when he tried to break a window to escape the school. He was treated at the medical facility and has been discharged.
Giovanna Bezerra Silva was shot dead on Monday by a fellow student at Sapopemba State School in São Paulo, Brazil. Two other students were also injured in the attack. The shooter, a 16-year-old freshman, was arrested at the scene
A surveillance camera captured the moment Monday when a 16-year-old student, who was allegedly being bullied, shot and killed Giovanna Bezerra, a 17-year-old junior, at Sapopemba State School in São Paulo, Brazil.
Chilling surveillance camera footage captured the moment the mask-wearing student burst into a classroom and started shooting, nearly hitting a young girl in the face.
He walked around the room as students ducked to the ground and others fled, sparing the life of a young boy who held his hands up.
A second surveillance video shows Bezerra, a juvenile, walking down a flight of stairs when the gunman approached from behind and shot her in the back of the head at 7:02 a.m.
Bezerra crashes to the bottom of the stairs, where she was later found by a school administrator.
A military police unit responded to a call around 7:30 a.m. and arrested the shooter on the spot and recovered the weapon, a .38 caliber revolver legally registered to his father.
Victim Emily Silva, who was expected to be released from the hospital Monday, texted her father, Alessandro Silva, after she was shot.
He ran from the family home to the school and took her to the hospital in a police car.
“I started walking up the stairs and saw the girl (who died) lying on the floor, that pool of blood. Then I went upstairs and found my daughter there. She had her hand on her stomach and said she had been shot,” Alessandro Silva told CBN Radio. ‘I picked her up and quickly walked down the stairs. Then I met a police officer and told him it was my daughter I was helping. Then we put her in the car and we came (to the hospital).”
Authorities were still searching for a second student who was also involved in the attack.
Students told Brazilian news outlet Metropoles that the attack was planned and carried out by four students who were bullied at the schools.
The shooter was reportedly bullied for being gay.
‘He was bullied a lot here at school. He was bullied because he was homosexual,” one of the students from Sapopemba State School told the newspaper. ‘Two weeks ago he warned that he would carry out this attack. Nobody believed it.’
A 16-year-old student stands at the door of a classroom after firing a shot at Sapopemba State School in São Paulo, Brazil, on Monday. The gunman killed one student and injured two others
The student points his gun at a classmate from Sapopemba State School. Brazilian news outlet Metropoles spoke to students who claimed the gunman was bullied because he was gay and planned the attack two weeks ago with three other classmates, including a lesbian.
São Paulo’s education minister said the school was not aware of any threat of attack allegedly committed by the 16-year-old student.
Video footage of a fight in a classroom showed several students attacking the gunman during an incident that reportedly occurred in June.
The student had also told his mother that he was receiving constant threats online in April. A police report has been drawn up for that incident.
A teacher with knowledge of the school fight told Metropoles that she was walking into the building when five shots were fired.
Another student recalled trying to lock themselves in a classroom before deciding to run outside to warn others.
“We tried to lock the door, we told everyone to leave,” the student said.
“We ran outside and knocked on the classroom doors so everyone could leave. I fell down the stairs and hurt my knee. It was too desperate, I was panicking.’
Giovanna Bezerra, a 17-year-old junior, was shot dead Monday in an attack that also injured two students at Sapopemba State School in Brazil
Governor of São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas announced that classes at the school have been suspended for ten days.
“We have to fight bullying, we have to fight homophobia, and after a situation like that you come to the conclusion that we are still not able to do it,” he said.
São Paulo Education Minister Renato Feder visited the school and said administrators were unaware the gunman and his alleged accomplices were planning the attack.
“What the principal said about the student was that he showed no signs of being a potential aggressor,” Feder said. “The psychologists, although they provide collective and individual help at this school, said today’s student had no problems.”