A gunman roamed the halls of an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday and killed 12 children, lining them up against a wall and shooting them in the head at point-blank range as he shouted: “I’m going to kill you all!”
It was the worst school shooting in Brazil — and would have been deadlier if the gunman had not been shot in the legs by a police officer, who said the man then fell down some stairs and shot himself in the head.
Images taken with a cellphone and posted on YouTube showed students fleeing wildly, screaming for help, many with their white and blue school shirts soaked in blood.
Photo: Reuters
Rio de Janeiro state’s Secretariat of Health and Civil Defense said in a statement on its Web site that at least 12 other students were injured, many by gunfire, and taken to hospitals.
At least two were in grave condition. Officials earlier reported 18 injured.
The dead included 10 girls and two boys, plus the gunman, according to the Health and Civil Defense department. Those killed were between the ages of 12 and 15. One of the boys died at a hospital about 12 hours after the shooting.
The gunman was identified as 23-year-old Wellington Oliveira, who had once attended the Tasso da Silveira school in a working-class neighborhood in western Rio.
No motive was known, but authorities said the shooter left a rambling and mostly incoherent letter at the scene indicating he wanted to kill himself.
The letter also explained in detail how Oliveira wanted his corpse to be cared for — bathed and wrapped in a white sheet that he left in a bag in the first room where he said he would start shooting.
The letter also states that the gunman should not be touched by anyone who is “impure” unless they wear gloves.
“If possible I want to be buried next to my mother. A follower of God must visit my grave at least once. He must pray before my grave and ask God to forgive me for what I have done,” read the letter, portions of which were posted on the Globo television network’s Web site.
Edmar Peixoto, the deputy mayor of western Rio, said the letter also stated the gunman was infected with HIV.
The public school was in the midst of celebrating its 40th anniversary, and students’ handmade posters commemorating the day could be seen through school windows.
Rio Police Chief Martha Rocha said that when Oliveira first entered the school he told staff members he was there to give a lecture.
Shortly afterward, he opened fire. Rocha said he was carrying two pistols and an ammunition belt. He fired off at least 30 rounds.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff wept when commenting on the incident during a speech to business leaders and requested a moment of silence for the victims.
“This type of crime is not characteristic of [our] country and therefore we are all ... united in repudiating this act of violence,” Rousseff said.
Marcos Silva, 11, who was in the school but was not harmed, said the experience was “like a horror movie.”
“Everyone lay down on the ground in silence, the teacher asked us not to make noise so the killer wouldn’t notice us,” Silva said “I thought to myself, ‘If he comes in, we’re all going to die.’”
“What happened in Rio is without a doubt the worst incident of its kind to have taken place in Brazil,” said Guaracy Mingardi, a crime and public safety expert at the University of Sao Paulo.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
RSS