Rio de Janeiro school shooting
| Rio de Janeiro school shooting | |
|---|---|
Tasso da Silveira Municipal School after the shooting | |
Rio de Janeiro | |
| Location | 22°53′02″S 43°25′03″W / 22.883834°S 43.417405°W Tasso da Silveira Municipal School (Escola Municipal Tasso da Silveira), Realengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Date | 7 April 2011 8:30 – 8:42 (BRT, UTC−03:00) |
Attack type | School shooting, mass shooting, mass murder, murder–suicide, shootout |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 13 (including the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 22 |
| Perpetrator | Wellington Menezes de Oliveira |
| Motive | Retaliation for bullying, with possible religious fanaticism accompaniment |
On the morning of 7 April 2011, a school shooting occurred at the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School, an elementary school in Realengo on the western fringe of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Twelve students were killed and 22 others were seriously wounded by Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a 23-year-old former student, who committed the attack with two revolvers. Oliveira was intercepted by the police but committed suicide before being arrested. It was the first non-gang-related mass school shooting to be reported in Brazil, and it remains tied with the 2016 Campinas massacre as the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in Brazilian history.
Although police found no concrete evidence of religious or political motives, texts found at Oliveira's home suggest that he was obsessed with terrorist acts and Islam, which he had converted to two years beforehand, after having been a Jehovah's Witness. In his last wishes, he requested to be buried following Islamic traditions and asked Jesus for eternal life and "God's forgiveness for what I have done." According to his adoptive sister and a close colleague, Oliveira was reserved and suffered from bullying.