Brazil school shooting leaves 11 dead

A heavily armed man entered his former Rio school yesterday and opened fire, killing 10 children and wounding 18 people before taking his own life, officials said in a tragedy that has shaken Brazil.

Rio de Janeiro state’s health department chief Sergio Cortes presented the new toll for the attack, revising it downward from 13 dead and 22 wounded announced earlier by fire officials in the chaotic few hours after the attack.

Authorities identified the shooter as 24-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a former student at the public school.

Police said he left a letter saying he wanted to commit suicide, but they also said he appeared to have prepared for a major deadly assault, bringing into the school two revolvers and loads of ammunition just as students and staff were arriving at the morning bell.

Colonel Evandro Bezerra, a fire department spokesman, told TV Globo News several of the dead had been shot in the head.

The multi-storey Tasso da Silveira primary school in Rio’s Realengo district served children between nine and 14 years old.

“Employees of the school told officers that the young man arrived well-dressed and carrying a backpack, and said he told them he had been invited to speak with students in a school conference,” Col Bezerra said.

“That’s how he gained access to the third floor,” where he launched his attack on at least one classroom, sending terrified students running down the stairs and out of the building.

Military Police Colonel Djalma Beltrame said police stormed the school and wounded the attacker, “but the man killed himself with a gunshot to the head.”

Col Beltrame said the attacker left a rambling suicide note that “made no sense and had no logic.”

The attack could have been far worse had a police patrol not driven past the school at the time of the shooting. Col Beltrame said the police saw wounded and screaming children in the streets, then heard gunshots.

Hundreds of distraught parents and neighbours rushed to the school for word of loved ones, with several people fainting amid harrowing scenes of despair outside the building, which had been cordoned off by police.

TV Globo News aired images of the wounded being loaded into ambulances at the school in the western Rio neighborhood.