A former student armed with a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver who killed three people and wounded 13 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 on Friday at a state school with primary and middle school students and a private school, both on the same street in the small town of Aracruz in Espírito Santo state in eastern Brazil. Two teachers and a student were killed.
About four hours later, the shooter, identified as a 16-year-old boy who used to study at the state school, was arrested by police, said Renato Casagrande, the governor of Espírito Santo. 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 licence plate hidden by a cloth.
Security camera footage showed him wearing a bulletproof vest, according to Espírito Santo’s public security secretary, Márcio Celante. The shooter gained access to the teachers’ lounge in the state 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 boy’s father, a military police officer.
The shooter is being held at a facility for underaged criminals.
School attacks are uncommon in Brazil, but have happened more frequently in recent years.
Not far from where Friday’s attacks occurred, in the city of Vitória, a former student entered his school with homemade explosives and knives in August. No students or teachers were injured.
A month later, in the north-eastern 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 found.
Police say investigations are still preliminary and they cannot jump to any conclusions about the motives for Friday’s shootings. But they said the attacker was wearing military-style clothing and a swastika.
The family said he has received psychiatric treatment, which the school had not been told about.
“This shows how the violence culture is a reality for some people, especially young people. This is a mental health issue which society has to deal with nowadays,” said Casagrande.
President Jair Bolsonaro has been a vocal supporter of gun rights. Experts say that in the past four years more than 40 decrees were passed making it easier for Brazilians to buy and register weapons. Sou da Paz Institute, a civil society organisation, said in a report in September that Brazilians are buying more than a thousand weapons a day.