Rio de Janeiro School Shooting Tragedy
Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 23 has shot dead 12 children before killing himself at his former primary school in Rio de Janeiro.
A disturbed young Brazilian shouted “I’m going to kill you all.” while roamed the halls of the school on Thursday and killed 10 girls and two boys, lining them up against a wall and shooting them in the head at point-blank range.
It was the worst school shooting in Brazil, and would have been deadlier if de Oliveira had not been shot in the legs by a police officer, who said the gunman then fell down some stairs and shot himself in the head.
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 and taken to hospitals. At least two were in grave condition.
The video taken with a mobile phone and posted on YouTube showed students fleeing wildly, screaming for help, many with their white and blue school shirts soaked in blood.
A religiously suicide note was found in de Oliveira’s clothes indicating he wanted to kill himself.
“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.
The deputy mayor of western Rio, Edmar Peixoto, said the letter also stated the gunman had AIDS.
Rio Police Chief Martha Rocha said the gunman was carrying two pistols and an ammunition belt. He fired off at least 30 rounds.
About 400 people were inside the school when the shooting began about 8:30 a.m. local time.
Police were alerted when two young boys, at least one with a gunshot wound, ran to two officers on patrol about two blocks away. The officers sprinted to the school, and at least one located the gunman and traded shots with him.
“He saw me and aimed a gun at me,” Officer Marcio Alves said. “I shot him in the legs, he fell down the stairs and then shot himself in the head.”
Rio Police Chief Martha Rocha said that when Oliveira first entered the school he told staff members he was there to give a lecture
Rio is a city rife with drug-gang violence in its vast slums, but school shootings are rare.
The gunman had no criminal history, Rocha told a news conference.
“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.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lamented the deaths of “defenseless children.”
“It’s not in the nature of our nation to have these types of crimes,” she said