Slaughter in school

Former students kill seven with gun, axes and crossbow

TWO masked men armed with a gun, knives, axes and crossbows descended on a school in southern Brazil yesterday, killing five students and two adults before one killed the other and then himself, authorities said.

The men, identified as former students at the school in a suburb of Sao Paulo, also shot and killed the owner of a used car business nearby before launching the attack on the school, authorities said.

Besides the five students, the dead included a teacher and a school administrator, said Joao Camilo Pires de Campos, the state’s public secretary. Nine others were wounded in the school attack and hospitalised, he said.

“This is the saddest day of my life,” Mr de Campos told reporters outside the school in the Sao Paulo suburb of Suzano.

Authorities identified the attackers as 17-year-old Guilherme Taucci Monteiro and 25-year-old Henrique de Castro.

“The big question is: What was the motivation of these former students?” Mr de Campos said.

Monteiro’s mother, Tatiana Taucci, offered a possible an- swer, telling Band News while hiding her face from the camera that her son had been bullied at the school.

“Bullying, they call it ... He stopped going to school ... because of this,” she said.

During the attack, Monteiro opened fire with a .38 calibre handgun and de Castro used a crossbow, Mr de Campos said.

The attackers were also carrying molotov cocktails, knives and small axes, authorities said.

“In 34 years as a policeman, it’s the first time I see someone use a crossbow like that,” police Colonel Marcelo Salles said. “It is horrendous.”

Horacio Pereira Nunes, a retiree whose house is next to the school, said he heard shots around 10am. “Then a lot of kids started running out, all screaming,” he said.