Taylor Barnes – The Christian Science Monitor, 04/07/2011
Police guard the perimeter of a school after a shooting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday, April 7. Brazilian authorities say that a gunman opened fire in the elementary school where 11 students were gunned down. Photo: Victor R. Caivano/AP
The Brazil school shooting this morning in the gritty Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Realengo left at least 11 students dead and a nation in shock over its first-ever school massacre.
“What happened has no precedent,” Military Police Colonel Djalma Beltrami told the Monitor today as he guarded the gates to the four-story public school on the city’s less-policed periphery. He says police in the area responded in a matter of “seconds” upon being warned.
But even that was not quick enough to prevent 23-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, himself a former student at the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School, from opening fire on students with two .38-caliber revolvers before killing himself. Ten girls and one boy were killed, and at least 17 more students were reported injured.
Brazil Portal 