Brazilian authorities have arrested a 16-year-old teenager who has been identified as the self-confessed perpetrator of Friday’s shootings at two schools in the eastern Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, which left three people dead and 13 wounded.
According to the State Health Secretariat, there are currently five people (three adults and two children) in very serious condition, and the death toll could rise in the coming hours.
The attacks occurred specifically against the Primo Bitti State Primary and Secondary School (EEEFM) and the private school of Praia de Coqueiral. First, the assailant invaded the state school with a pistol and shot several times in the teachers’ room. Two of them died on the spot and at least nine others were wounded.
The attacker then left the scene in a car and drove to the Praia de Coqueiral private school, where he killed one student and left two others wounded, according to Espírito Santo state Public Security and Social Defense Secretary, Colonel Márcio Celante.
After his arrest, the young man, a former student of the Primo Bitti school, confessed the crime to the police and assured that he had been planning these attacks for two years, according to the state governor, Renato Casagrande, although the motive has not yet been disclosed.
The teenager used a gun belonging to his father, a lieutenant in the Espírito Santo Military Police, from whom he also stole the car to travel from school to school.
According to police authorities, the teenager’s parents helped the son to surrender to the police.
