Governor: Attackers kill 8, themselves at Brazil school
Published 11:18 am Wednesday, March 13, 2019
- A man comforts a woman at the Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, Brazil, Wednesday, March 13, 2019. 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.
SAO PAULO — Two young men, wearing hoods and carrying firearms and other weapons, opened fire at a school in southern Brazil on Wednesday, killing eight people before taking their own lives, authorities said.
The dead included two teachers and six students, and several other people had been hospitalized after sustaining injuries, according to Gov. Joao Doria, speaking a few blocks from the public school in Suzano, a suburb of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.
The age of the attackers was estimated to be between 20 and 25 years old, and authorities don’t believe they were former students, the governor said.
Doria said the school had been evacuated and police were inspecting possible explosives left by the shooters.
“The school is on lockdown,” he said.
Latin America’s most populous nation has the largest number of annual homicides in the world, but school shootings are rare.
Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro recently announced that gun ownership controls would be loosened.
