23-year-old then turned the gun on himself after the massacre
23-year-old then turned the gun on himself after the massacre
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The gunman, a 23-year-old former student of Tasso da Silveira school, stopped to reload several times before he was cornered by police.
A woman shows a picture of her niece Patricia (15), one of the victims, as she stands outside a
hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
He then exchanged fire with a police officer and was wounded. Shortly after that, he shot himself in the head, according to Sergeant Marcio Alexandre Alves, the first police officer to arrive at the scene.
"He was determined to commit suicide after the tragedy," said Colonel Djalma Beltrami. The police said the gunman, identified as Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, left a letter behind at the school.
There were reports that the letter mentioned he had HIV.
Ten girls and one boy between the ages of 12 and 14 died from bullet wounds mostly to the head and chest, the state health and civil defence department said, and four more remained in serious condition.
One of the wounded, a young boy, managed to flee the school during the shooting and alert police, said the chief of civil police, Marta Rocha.
"There is blood on the walls, blood on the chairs.
There are 15 to 20 dead I think," said Roni de Macedo, a fireman who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting began and dragged eight seriously injured children from a second floor classroom.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said she was "shocked" by the attack and had "great concern" about the incident.
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