Brazil Shooter Kills 11 Schoolchildren in Rio Before Turning Gun on Self

Relatives of a victim of the shooting at a school in the neigborhood of Realengo, stand outside a hospital in Rio de Janeiro. Photographer: Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/Getty Images)

At least 11 children were killed and 13 injured when a man opened fire in a Rio de Janeiro elementary public school this morning. The attacker killed himself as police searched the building.

Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a 23-year-old former student, carried out the attack at the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School in Realengo, on the western outskirts of Rio, police Colonel Djalma Beltrame told Globo TV. Oliveira gained access to the school carrying two revolvers in a backpack by posing as a lecturer, police said.

“It was a premeditated act,” Beltrame said.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was “shocked” by the killing and ordered Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo to work with local authorities on the case. Rousseff cried as she asked for a minute of silence for the victims at an event in Brasilia today.

Hundreds of people, including mothers of students and other relatives, gathered around the school after the shooting as police blocked access to the building. The 11 students were aged 9 to 14, Globo said on its website.

Oliveira headed toward a classroom after telling a teacher who recognized him that he was going to take part in a series of lectures by former students to celebrate the school’s anniversary today, Rio Police Chief Martha Rocha said at a news conference.

Suicide Note

In a suicide note found at the school, Oliveira asked that his body be wrapped in a white sheet that he left in a room at the school and to be buried next to his mother, according to an image of the letter posted on Globo’s website and showed on TV.

Oliveira’s note also asked that only the “chaste” or those who lost their virginity after marriage and did not commit adultery should be allowed to touch his body without gloves.

An injured student escaped from the building and called police patrolling the area, Beltrame said. The killer shot himself after police caught him leaving one classroom and heading toward another, he said.

Rio’s state governor, Sergio Cabral, pledged assistance to the victims’ families and the surviving children at a news conference in the city.

Officials at the press offices of Rio’s military and civil police departments said they had no further information.

In a separate attack today, two children were injured by two bombs thrown in the Mafalda Teixeira Alvarenga Municipal School in the Arnaldo Eugenio neighborhood, also in the western outskirts of Rio, Globo said on its website.

To contact the reporters on this story: Carlos Caminada in Rio De Janeiro at ccaminada1@bloomberg.net; Telma Marotto in Sao Paulo at tmarotto1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Carlos Caminada at ccaminada1@bloomberg.net