A 13-year-old student entered a public school shooting indiscriminately on May 5, killing two school officials and wounding five other people, four of them minors. A report from the Paulista State University and the University of Campinas revealed that between 2001 and 2024 there were 42 attacks of this type in educational institutions, a trend that has already changed the legislation against similar crimes.

First modification: 05/06/2026 - 04:33

A 13-year-old boy used his stepfather's gun to shoot at educational staff and students at a public school, the Instituto São José de Río Branco, in the state of Acre, causing the death of two workers at the institution and wounding five other people, including four minors.

The attacker entered without difficulty, because he was a student at the school, and began shooting, causing scenes of panic that were later reproduced on social networks, where students, teachers and administrative staff were seen running through the hallways and stairs to escape the bullets.

Law enforcement took a while to activate, because according to witness accounts, when the first shots were heard, some people attributed the noise to some repairs that were being carried out on the building.

Brazilian media report that the deceased were two workers at the institution and that a third was among the injured.

The attacker, whose identity was not revealed, because he was a minor, did not enter the classrooms and voluntarily surrendered to the authorities, who seized his pistol and a full magazine and took him to the general command of the Military Police. His stepfather, the owner of the gun used, was arrested shortly after.

The Civil Police of the state of Acre indicated that they have opened investigations to determine the young man's motivations, establish the sequence of events and assign responsibilities for access to the weapon.

The Acre Secretary of Education (SEE) announced that classes would be suspended for three days throughout the state, and that psychosocial support services would be enabled for students and members of the educational community in general.

"The state expresses deep solidarity with the families of the victims, the school community of the São José Institute and all educational professionals affected by this incident," stated the governor of Acre, Mailza Assis, in a statement.

An upward trend

The shooting is the second in the last year at educational institutions, after two teenagers were killed and three others were injured during a shooting at a school in the city of Sobral, Ceará state, which took place last September.

However, a broader look reveals a much more widespread occurrence of such incidents.

The report 'Attacks of extreme violence in schools in Brazil', prepared by the Paulista State University and the University of Campinas, revealed that between 2001 and 2024 there were 42 armed attacks in schools, which left 38 dead.

The study detected that almost two-thirds of these attacks (64%) took place between 2002 and 2024, which sets up an obvious pattern of escalation.

Another similar report, prepared by the Sao Paulo State Research Support Foundation (FAPESP), offered even more worrying figures. Their study was more limited in time (2002 to 2023), but revealed even more fatalities: 49 students and teachers in 36 events.

The majority of the attacks had been perpetrated by white men who used firearms or knives in identical proportions (44% each) and their motivations were related to hate speech and content in digital communities that invited extreme violence.

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During the periods studied by both investigations, events occurred such as the attack on a daycare center in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, where a man with an ax killed four children in April 2023.

Also corresponding to that period are the shooting at a school in Sao Paulo in October of the same year, where a student died and three others were injured, or the 2022 attack, in which a teenager from Ceará shot three classmates and killed one of them.

In 2023, after the incident in Sao Paulo, President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva declared that it could not be considered normal for young people to have access to firearms, after the flexibility of carrying and possession promoted by the far-right Jair Bolsonaro between 2019 and 2022.

As a result of the increase in cases, Brazil's Congress approved a bill in July 2025 that made attacks on schools atrocity crimes, which led to an increase in prison sentences for perpetrators by almost a third.

With EFE, AP and local media

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