Brazilian media showed security camera footage of the gunman, dressed in a camouflage suit, running towards the school, gun in hand. As he ran through the halls, he fired the first shots.
According to investigators, the gunman wore a swastika on his camouflage suit. Authorities said the boy was the son of a police officer whose two weapons he used in the attack – the service weapon and a privately registered weapon.
Deputy João Francisco Filho told reporters that the 16-year-old had apparently planned the attack for two years and did not appear to have a “defined target”.
Lula: “Absurd tragedy”
Brazil’s president-elect, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Lula, described the attack on Twitter as an “absurd tragedy”. He offered his condolences to the victims’ families and said he would assist the governor with investigations.
Lula will take office on December 1st. During the election campaign, he denounced the extreme increase in the number of gun licenses during the tenure of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. Under Bolsonaro, the number of gun collectors, sport shooters and hunters has increased from 117,000 in 2019 to more than 673,000. With his decrees, the former soldier massively facilitated access to firearms.
Despite widespread violence in Brazil, firearm attacks on schools in the South American country are relatively rare. In April 2011, in the bloodiest school attack to date, a 24-year-old man opened fire at his former school in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro, killing twelve schoolchildren before committing suicide. In March 2019, two former high school students in the São Paulo area shot dead eight people and injured 11 others before turning the gun on themselves.