The Deadliest School Shooting in Brazil
By: Gisele Oliveira
Tags: School Shootings, True Crime, Murder, Shooting, Massacre

The massacre

Around 8 am on April 7th, he made his way to the school wearing a green dress shirt, black pants, and black boots. He carried a bag containing a .38-caliber and a .32-caliber revolver, which he had illegally purchased, six speedloaders, an ammunition belt, and a suicide letter.

He picked up the copy and asked for permission to go visit his former Portuguese teacher Dorotéia in the reading room. Once he was allowed to enter, they hugged and talked. She asked him if he was there to present a lecture since former pupils were being invited to make a speech in celebration of the school’s 40th anniversary.

He wasn’t there for that purpose.

The clothes he wore during the attack. Source

After leaving the reading room, he walked into an 8th-grade classroom on the second floor without asking, put his bag on the teacher’s desk, and enunciated “I came to give a lecture,” as he pulled out his two guns and began to open fire. The teacher Leila D’Angelo shouted “He’s going to kill everyone!” and ran together with some of her students. Others, unfortunately, couldn’t make it.

Four girls were killed in the first classroom; Laryssa Martins, 13, Géssica Guedes, 15, Samira Pires, 14, and Karine Chagas, 14.

13-year-old Alan Mendes was shot in the hand, shoulder, and head, but managed to escape. He was a few miles from the school when he came across police officers and asked for help. He hadn’t realized he was bleeding until he looked at his reflection. They rescued Alan and drove to the school.

Wellington was now in the second classroom. The teacher and some children had already run out of school as soon as they heard gunshots coming from the classroom next door, but others got paralyzed by the fear.

There, six girls and two boys were killed; Mariana Rocha, 13, Milena dos Santos, 15, Luiza Paula, 15, Larissa Atanázio, 13, Bianca Rocha, 14, Ana Carolina, 13, Igor Moraes, 13, and Rafael Pereira, 14.

When the officers finally arrived at the scene, the Sgt. Márcio Alves immediately went inside. As he went up to the second floor, he spotted the perpetrator leaving the classroom, seemingly ready to go to the third floor. Wellington ran towards the third-floor staircase, but the officer managed to shoot him in the abdomen, resulting in his fall. He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Tasso da Silveira Municipal School on April 7, 2011.

It wasn’t a mere coincidence that his victims were mostly girls. Mateus Moraes, 13 years old back then, told that the perpetrator shot girls in the head while shooting boys in arms or legs. He begged for his life and Wellington answered “Relax, fatty, I’m not gonna kill you.”

Thayane Tavares, 14 years old at the time, was shot in the arm and played dead. However, once she accidentally opened her eyes, the perpetrator said “Haven’t you died yet? You’re going to die because you’re very pretty,” and shot her three more times. She miraculously survived and became paraplegic.

Wellington’s family made no attempts to claim his body and he was buried as an indigent on April 22.

Three men who sold the weapons to Wellington were arrested. He allegedly claimed that he needed a firearm for his own protection.