A 10-YEAR-OLD boy shot his teacher in the back before turning the gun on himself in a classroom in São Paulo on Thursday. The teacher survived but the fourth-grader died instantly.
"The bell signalling the end of break had just sounded when we heard the first shot," one student told the Estado de S.Paulonewspaper. "I was going up the ramp to go back to class. At the beginning everyone thought someone had let off a bomb in the patio but then we heard the second shot.
“That is when people started shouting: ‘He’s killed himself, he’s killed himself.’”
Pupils were still entering the classroom of 38-year-old Rosileide Queiros de Oliveira at 3.30pm when the still unnamed boy stood up and pointed a gun at the teacher, who had her back to the class at the time. He shot her once and then left the room before killing himself with two shots to the head, to the horror of the 24 other students in the class.
Students said they had not witnessed any argument or discussion between the teacher and the boy, whose older brother was also in the school when the incident took place. But the teacher’s boyfriend told a local radio station that Ms Oliveira had already complained about the boy’s behaviour, telling school authorities that he was hyperactive, disruptive in class and constantly causing her problems.
The teacher was taken to hospital by helicopter and after a three-hour operation is not in danger, doctors say.
The gun used by the boy belonged to his father, a municipal policeman, though the weapon was not his service weapon. Another witness told the newspaper that everyone knew the boys were sons of a policeman “but we never imagined one of them would take a weapon and bring it to school”. Police and school authorities say they do not know what triggered the event, which took place in the city of São Caetano do Sul in Greater São Paulo.