Massacre at a school in Brazil: San Pablo buries victims and asks why tragedy

The mother of one of the attackers speaks of intimidation. But there is still no explanation for what happened.

A suburb of San Pablo was preparing on Thursday to bury its dead, while seeking the reasons why two former masked students, armed with a rifle, knives, axes and bows, killed five teenagers and two adults before committing suicide the day before.

According to authorities, the attackers also shot dead the owner of a nearby used car shop before the Raul Brasil school mbadacre in Suzano, a suburb of the country's largest city.

Brazil has the highest annual homicide rate in the world, but it is not common for schools to occur. In 2011, 12 students died at the hands of an armed man who visited the corridors of a downtown Rio de Janeiro.

Joao Camilo Pires of Campos, Secretary of Public Security of the State, was among the victims. Nine others were injured, he added.

"It's the saddest day of my life," Campos told the press.

Funeral for deceased students began Thursday morning.

Authorities have identified the attackers as Guilherme Taucci Monteiro, 17, and Henrique de Castro, 25.

"The big question is: what was the motivation of these former students?" Campos said.

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Monteiro's mother, Tatiana Taucci, offered a possible answer. Hiding his face at the camera of the Band News television channel, he said that his son had been abused at school.

"They call him intimidating … he stopped going to school … because of that," she said, adding that "I'm not going to school. she was surprised at her son's involvement in the attack, which he learned on television, just like everyone else.

Minutes before the incident, Monteiro had published 26 photographs on his Facebook profile, several with guns and one in which he appeared showing his middle finger while looking at the camera.

In some pictures he wore a black scarf with a white skull and crossbones. No text has accompanied the photographs.

Wednesday afternoon, Facebook had withdrawn account Monteiro.

During the attack, Monteiro started shooting with a .38 caliber pistol and Castro used a bow, explained the state official. Forensic experts will determine the death of each of the victims, he said.

The attackers also took Molotov badtails, knives and small axes, officials said.

"In 34 years of police, it's the first time I see anyone using a bow this way," said police colonel Marcelo Salles. "It's horrible."

Fiction was ahead of reality. The use of the bow recalls the American-British film "We must talk about Kevin", in which a teenager was slaughtering his clbadmates with a bow and arrows.

In the case of San Pablo, when the police arrived, the attackers attempted to enter a room in the back of the school where many students were hiding. Instead of facing the agents, Monteiro shot Castro in the head and then committed suicide, authorities said.

Outside the school, students reported horrific attacks and reported seeing several bodies lying in puddles of blood.

Kelly Milene Guerra Cardoso, 16, recounted that she had been hiding with other students at the downtown buffet, had locked the door and was lying on the floor .

"We stayed there until they opened the door and we thought they were the attackers who came to pick us up, but it was the police," he said. "They told us to start running."

Horacio Pereira Nunes, a pensioner whose house is next to the school, said he heard gunshots around 10am.

"Then a lot of kids started running, shouting," he added. "The police were quick to arrive."

Public school teacher Raúl Brasil has more than 1,600 primary and secondary school students, said teachers gathered outside.

During the election campaign, President Jair Bolsonaro promised to fight crime, partly by facilitating access to weapons. Shortly after taking office on January 1, he promulgated an order facilitating his sale.

"An unbeatable monstrosity and cowardice," wrote Bolsonaro in a tweet in which he offered his condolences to the families of the victims of the attack.

In the same way arguments advocating less stringent US gun regulations, Bolsonaro and his supporters argue that increased access to weapons will improve the fight against crime.

Sen. Major Olímpio, a member of the Bolsonaro party and a supporter of the flexibilization of firearms legislation, repeated his arguments a few hours after the murder.

"We can not let those who benefit from this tragedy say that disarmament is the solution," he tweeted. "Shameful and shameful" dummy disarmament "gave criminals firearms and avoided self-defense."

(Clarin)