Brazil school shooting is latest in dozens of international attacks

Attacks at schools outside of the United States usually follow the same patterns and profiles as domestic school shootings. Most are linked to Columbine and online radicalization.

A 13-year-old student opened fire near the principal’s office of Instituto São José in Brazil on Tuesday. Two were killed and two were wounded before the student surrendered. Just like most school shooters in the US, the attack was committed by a current student who took a gun from their home.

This is just one of at least 10 planned attacks at schools in Brazil over the last 5 years. While I don’t track international school shootings with the same level of detail as the K-12 School Shooting Database (only incidents in the US), there have been at least 40 school shootings in Brazil since Columbine in 1999. I don’t have have the time, resources, or language translation skills to analyze every school shooting around the world.

I mention Columbine because many of these attacks reference or mimic the Columbine shooters. The 2011 shooting at Tasso da Silveira Municipal School in Rio where 10 victims were killed and 22 wounded would make the list of the worst school shootings in the US. In the 2019 planned attack at Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, São Paulo, two young men committed “Columbine 2.0” when they killed 8 and wounded 11 before committing suicide inside the school.

Most pre-planned school shootings end in less than a minute when the assailant either surrenders, is subdued by nearby students/staff, ends their own life, or flees. Almost all school shooters have additional weapons/ammo when they end the attack on their own terms with other potential victims still in the area.

Physical security at schools always creates the ‘fortress problem’ paradox where walls that keep intruders out also traps victims inside. Since people started building castles 1,000 years ago, every defense against one threat becomes a vulnerability against another.

Students at Instituto São José in Brazil trying to escape the shooting attempted to jump over a wall that separates the school from an adjacent hotel. The wall is six meters high and only one student managed to jump over (hopefully future member of Brazil’s Olympic team) and take refuge in the hotel. The other students were left stuck on the school roof trying to escape.

It’s not just Brazil, I’ve written about school shootings across the world over the last year including:

• Nine killed and 13 wounded in second Turkish school shooting this week

• Sixteen wounded at Turkish high school and active shooter trends in US

• Canadian school shooter: Online radicalization, nihilism, gun culture, and gender identity

• 112 TCC-radicalized students identified by police in Jakarta, Indonesia

Ahmet Koyuncu Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in Siverek, Turkey (note: school shooters usually fire down hallways at silhouettes who are running away or students facing away from the attacker inside classroom. Victims are rarely shot face-to-face)

These international school shootings are important to study because they are basically the same as school shootings in the United States. When deliberate attacks are relatively rare compared to other forms of violence, we need as many data points as possible to track effective prevention efforts.

School shootings in Brazil

As I mentioned at the top, Brazil has seen about 40 school attacks since Columbine. On April 7, 2013, a 24-year-old committed a planned attack inside Tasso da Silveira Municipal School (his former elementary school) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He killed 12 students and wounded 22 others.

Tasso da Silveira Municipal School (note: school shooters usually fire down hallways at silhouettes who are running away. Victims are rarely shot face-to-face.)

He screamed, “I’m going to kill you all” as he fired at students running down the hallways. Like many school shooters in the United States, he commit suicide inside the school to end the attack on his own terms while he still had function weapons and additional ammo.

Another high-profile incident was on March 13, 2019 at Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, São Paulo, when two former students entered the school armed with firearms, a crossbow, knives, and explosives. They called their attack “Columbine 2.0”.

Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, São Paulo (note: most victims are shot while they are facing away from the attacker including students who are focused on a task like these students waiting at a service window. Victims are rarely shot face-to-face with the assailant)

The attackers killed eight victims (five students, two staff members, and the owner of a nearby car dealership) before killing themselves.

Here are some details about the 10 attacks at schools in Brazil over the last 5 years:

Pró-Infância Aquarela (04 May 2021) — An 18-year-old attacker armed with a machete killed three children and two staff members at a daycare center before being stopped by police.

Escola Municipal Eurides Sant’Anna (26 Sept 2022) — A 14-year-old student entered the school with a revolver and machete, killing a wheelchair-using student and injuring another person. Prior to the attack, he posted extremist content online.

Professional and Technological Education Center (05 Oct 2022) — A former student entered the school and opened fire, killing one student and injuring three others.