A 16-year-old high school student was killed and another student injured in a shooting attack by a former student at a school in southern Brazil on Monday, authorities said.
The intervention of a teacher, who immobilized the gunman, “made it possible to avoid an even worse tragedy,” explained Parana State Governor Carlos Ratinho Junior, who ordered a three-day mourning.
A regional government statement said an armed former student broke into a high school in the city of Londrina, where he asked for his school report card.
Once inside, he shot two people. A 16-year-old student died at the scene and another student was taken to hospital with gunshot wounds. No information was given about the age or the state of health of the injured student.
According to the local press, the attacker is 21 years old.
“The teacher who attacked the former student had recently graduated from college and the police arrived at the school in just three minutes,” the Parana governor said.
“Another young life stolen by hate and violence that we can no longer tolerate in our schools and in our society,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva tweeted, expressing “sadness and outrage.”
Several attacks have recently occurred in schools in Brazil.
In April, four children between the ages of four and seven were murdered with axes at a school in Blumenau (south).
In 2019, eight people were killed by two former high school students in a Sao Paulo suburb who subsequently committed suicide.
“The excuse for violence today is in the hands of our young people, on smartphones, on tablets, in the irresponsible spread of messages of violence and hate on the internet,” Justice Minister Flavio Dino said in Rio de Janeiro on Monday.
The most dramatic attack ever recorded in Brazil was the 2011 death of twelve children in a kindergarten in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, who were murdered by a man who opened fire before committing suicide.