Brazil school shooting: heavily armed former students kill 8 as well as themselvesMAURICIO SAVARESE AND ANNA JEAN KAISER·09:12, Mar 14 2019Two young men, wearing hoods and carrying firearms and other weapons, opened fire at a school in southern Brazil on Wednesday (Thursday morning NZ time), killing five students and two adults before taking their own lives, authorities said.
The men, identified as former students at the school in a suburb of Sao Paulo, also shot and killed the owner of a used car business nearby before launching the attack on the school, authorities said.
Besides the five students, the dead included a teacher and a school administrator, said Joao Camilo Pires de Campos, the state's public secretary.
Andre Penner/APA student cries outside the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, the greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil. The state government of Sao Paulo said two teenagers, armed with guns and wearing hoods, entered the school and began shooting at students. They then killed themselves, according to the statement.
Nine others were wounded in the school attack and hospitalised, he said.
"This is the saddest day of my life," de Campos said, speaking to reporters outside the school in the Sao Paulo suburb of Suzano.
Authorities identified the attackers as 17-year-old Guilherme Taucci Monteiro and 25-year-old Henrique de Castro.
"The big question is: what was the motivation of these former students?" de Castro said.
Monteiro opened fire with a .38 calibre handgun and de Castro used a crossbow, de Campos said, adding that forensics would determine how the victims died.
Mauricio Sumiya/Futura Press via APA man comforts a woman at the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, Brazil.
The attackers were also carrying Molotov cocktails, knives and axes, authorities said
"In 34 years as a policeman, it's the first time I see someone use a crossbow like that," Marcelo Salles said. "It is horrendous."
The attackers were trying to force their way inside a room at the back of the school where many students were hiding when police arrived.
Victor Moriyama/GettyPolice officers hold a news conference following a shooting at Raul Brazil School on March 13, 2019 in Suzano, Brazil. Eight people were killed and more than twenty injured when two students, Luiz de Castro and Guilherme Monteiro, opened fire.
Instead of facing police, they turned their weapons on themselves, authorities said without elaborating.
Students gathered outside the school recounted harrowing attacks and seeing several bodies lying in pools of blood.
Kelly Milene Guerra Cardoso, 16, said she and other students took refuge in the school's cafeteria, locked the door and lay on the floor.
Andre Penner/APA former student is comforted by a friend outside the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, the greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil.
"We stayed there until the door was opened. We thought it was the shooters coming to get us, but it was the police," she said. "They told us to start running."
Horacio Pereira Nunes, a retiree whose house is next to the school, said he heard shots around 10 am.
"Then a lot of kids started running out, all screaming," he said. "It didn't take long until police arrived."
Mauricio Sumiya/Futura Press via APA woman uses her cell phone as she waits for news outside the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, Sao Paulo state, Brazil.
The Raul Brasil Professor public school has more than 1600 students from elementary to high school grades, teachers gathered outside said.
Latin America's most populous nation has the largest number of annual homicides in the world, but school shootings are rare.
In 2011, 12 students were killed by a gunman who roamed the halls of a school in Rio de Janeiro, shooting at them.
The school was evacuated and police were inspecting possible explosives left by the shooters.
President Jair Bolsonaro ran on a platform that included promises to crack down on criminals, in part by expanding public access to guns. Soon after his New Year's Day inauguration, Bolsonaro issued a decree making it easier to buy a gun.
Similar to arguments made by proponents of less gun regulation in the United States, Bolsonaro and his supporters argue that expanded access to guns will combat crime.
Senator Major Olimpio, a member of Bolsonaro's party and a proponent of loosening gun legislation, again made that argument hours after the rampage.
Victor Moriyama/GettyPolice officers work the scene of a shooting at Raul Brazil School on March 13, 2019 in Suzano, Brazil.
"We can't let those who take advantage of this tragedy speak about how disarmament is the solution," he tweeted, adding: "Weak and shameful 'disarmament farce,' which gave guns to criminals and prevented self-defense."
Andre Penner/APForensic vehicles transport the bodies of the people who were killed in a school shooting at the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, in the greater Sao Paulo area, Brazil.
Victor Moriyama/GettyPolice officers hold a news conference following a shooting at Raul Brazil School in Suzano, Brazil.
Victor Moriyama/GettyResidents and relatives mourn the loss of friends and relatives at the scene of a shooting at Raul Brazil School in Suzano, Brazil. Eight people were killed and more than twenty injured when two students, Luiz de Castro and Guilherme Monteiro, opened fire.
Johnny Morais/Futura Press via APA teenager who was injured during a shooting inside the Raul Brasil State School, is carried on a gurney into a hospital, in Suzano, Brazil.
APhttps://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/ ... zil-school
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