Shooter wore swastika in deadly attack

A former student armed with a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver who killed four people and wounded 12 in two schools in Brazil had a swastika pinned to his vest and had been planning the attacks for two years, police said.

The shootings took place Saturday at a public school with elementary and middle school students and a private school, both located on the same street in the small town of Aracruz in Espirito Santo state in southeastern Brazil. Three teachers and a student were killed. Five of the wounded remained in hospital.

About four hours later, the shooter, identified as a 16-year-old boy who used to study at the public school, was arrested by police, Espirito Santo Governor Renato Casagrande said. Authorities did not release the suspect’s name.

Authorities say the teenager used his family’s car to go from one school to the other, and had the license plate hidden by a cloth.

Security camera footage showed him wearing a bulletproof vest, according to an Espirito Santo official. The shooter gained access to the teachers’ lounge in the public school after breaking a lock.

Casagrande said the semiautomatic weapon belonged to the military police, while the revolver was a personal weapon registered in the name of the former student’s father, a military police officer.

The shooter is being held at facility for under-aged criminals.

School attacks are uncommon in Brazil, but have happened with greater frequency in recent years.

Not far from where Saturday’s attacks occurred, in the city of Vitoria, a former student entered his school with homemade explosives and knives in August. No students or teachers were injured.

A month later, in the northeastern state of Bahia, another teenager used his father’s gun to shoot and killed a student in a wheelchair.

Both attackers had met online at chat groups, police later concluded.

In 2019, two former students entered their school and killed eight people in the city of Suzano in Sao Paulo state. They later killed themselves. Friends told police they were both obsessed with the 1999 Columbine shooting in the United States.

Police say investigations are still preliminary and they can’t jump to any conclusions about the motive but the 16-year-old attacker was wearing military-style clothing and a swastika.

“This shows how the violence culture is a reality for some people, especially young people,” said Casagrande.