A man and a teenager performed a mass shooting in a traditional public school in Suzano, Greater São Paulo, was on Wednesday (14th). The suspects, both former students, planned and executed the attack, and brought a gun, chargers, a medieval weapon, and a hatchet. Before invading the school, they killed the teenager's uncle.
The victims are students Kaio Lucas da Costa Limeira, Cleiton Antonio Ribeiro, Caio Oliveira, Samuel Melquiades Silva de Oliveira, Douglas Murilo Celestino and school staff Marilena Ferreira Umezu and Eliana de Oliveira Xavier.
Brazil is currently debating gun ownership laws, and it's particularly notable because the two shooters seemed to have planned the attack for a long time.
Before heading to the school, shooters Luiz Henrique de Castro and Guilherme Taucci Monteiro went to a carwash at 9:30 and shot Monteiro's uncle, who owned the carwash and had discovered their plans. Then, they drove off in a rented car.
They arrived ten minutes later at school. Surveillance footage shows that Monteiro was the first to arrive. Dressed in black and wearing a scarf with a skull print and a backpack, he drew a gun and starting shooting towards a group of students and counselor Umezu.
He then went to the schoolyard, filled with students because it was recess. Less than a minute later, Castro entered the school, laid the guns on the floor, took the hatchet and started attacking the students who were already shot.
A group of students ran away from Monteiro, only to find Castro at the school's entrance. Footage shows him trying to attack the group. He just abandoned the hatchet when the weapon got stuck in a victim's shoulder, who managed to run to a nearby hospital.
Another surveillance camera located in the street outside, show the students' panic as they jumped the school's walls to run away from the shooters.
After the attack, São Paulo's education department announced that it would revise security procedures in all its 5,300 public schools and it will study how to reinforce security in more vulnerable schools.
Governor João Doria imposed official three-day mourning in the state. He claimed the attack was "the saddest scene I witnessed during my whole life."
President Jair Bolsonaro only commented on social media, and six hours after the crimes happened. He called it "a monstrosity and an unprecedented act of cowardice."
Translated by NATASHA MADOV