A gunman entered an elementary school in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday and opened fire with two handguns, killing 11 students and wounding 13 others before turning his guns on himself, the police and city officials said.
The gunman, a 23-year-old former student of the school, stopped to reload several times before he was cornered on a staircase by police. He then exchanged fire with a police officer and was wounded. Shortly after that, he shot himself in the head, according to Sergeant Marcio Alexandre Alves, the first police officer to arrive at the scene.
“He was determined to commit suicide after the tragedy,” Col. Djalma Beltrami told Globo television. The police said the gunman, identified as Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, left a letter behind at the school, but the police did not describe its contents, according to reports.
Ten girls and one boy between the ages of 12 and 14 died from bullet wounds mostly to the head and chest, the state health and civil defense department said, and four more remained in serious condition. One of the wounded, a young boy, managed to flee the school during the shooting and alert police, said the chief of civil police, Marta Rocha.
Television images showed mournful crowds gathered outside the school, which is located in the working class neighborhood of Realengo in the west of the city. Some parents screamed for information about their children while others wept, The Associated Press reported.
According to Rocha, the gunman gained access to the school by telling staff, who recognized him as a former student, that he had come to deliver a speech. The school was celebrating its 40th anniversary and had a program to receive former students, Rocha told reporters at a news conference in Rio.
