A 13-year-old student in Brazil’s largest city stabbed to death a 71-year-old teacher and injured three teachers and two fellow students on Monday in a knife attack at a public school, state officials said.
The five wounded from the Thomazia Montoro school in San Paolo were hospitalized in stable conditions. The suspected attacker has been arrested and state military police are investigating.
“Our efforts are focused on helping the injured and comforting the families,” Governor Tarcísio de Freitas wrote on social media.
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A student who spoke to reporters alongside his mother outside the school said the assailant had insulted another student last week and the teacher he had stabbed to death had tried to resolve the conflict.
A Brazilian woman takes comfort after learning that her daughter has been stabbed. (AP Photo/André Penner)
The attacker had called the other student a “rat” and “the other one didn’t like it, and they started arguing,” said Gabriel Livramento, 13, who is in the same class as the suspect. He added that the attacker didn’t like the way the teacher had intervened and said he would do something about it.
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The attacker entered the classroom on Monday wearing a skull mask and stabbed the teacher from behind, hitting her in the head and back, Livramento said. The whole class then started running, he said.
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The boy had been looking for ways to obtain a firearm on the Internet, authorities said at an afternoon news conference. He had recently been transferred from another school.
