Two female staff members were shot and killed at a public school in northwestern Brazil on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, when a 13-year-old boy opened fire in a corridor, authorities said. The shooting at Instituto São José in Rio Branco also left an 11-year-old girl wounded in the leg and injured a second staff member.
The teenage suspect was detained by the time police arrived at the school in Acre state. Investigators said the firearm belonged to his stepfather, who was also detained Tuesday as authorities tried to determine how the boy obtained the weapon.
Both women who were killed died at the scene. The injured student and staff member were taken to a hospital for treatment. Authorities withheld the names of the victims as relatives gathered outside the school, embracing and crying while emergency workers brought a woman out on a stretcher.
Chaos In A School Hallway
Lieutenant Colonel Felipe Russo of the Acre military police department said the boy fired multiple shots in a hallway leading to the principal’s office before surrendering. Authorities have not determined whether he currently attended or previously attended Instituto São José, and Acre police have launched a formal investigation.
The weapon was registered to the suspect’s legal guardian, identified by police as his stepfather. Investigators are working to establish how the teenager accessed the firearm.
Eduardo Rodrigues Cavalcante, a 19-year-old receptionist at a hotel adjacent to the school, witnessed terrified students fleeing. Some climbed onto the roof. Others attempted to scale the concrete wall dividing the two properties.
“The wall is six meters high, and only one person managed to jump over and take refuge here in the hotel. The other people were left on the school roof trying to escape,” Cavalcante told reporters, adding that he heard “gunshots and a lot of screaming.”
A State In Mourning
Acre Governor Mailza Assis suspended classes statewide for three days and sent psychological support teams to help traumatized students, educators and families cope. Counselors started arriving at schools in the state capital Wednesday morning.
“The state expresses deep solidarity with the victims’ families, the school community of Instituto São José and all education professionals affected by this incident,” Assis said in a statement.
Local broadcasts showed the immediate aftermath: a woman on a stretcher being evacuated, parents collapsing into each other’s arms outside the gates, students still holding onto classmates as they were led away. The school is located in a residential area of Rio Branco, surrounded by businesses and the hotel where Cavalcante was on duty when the shooting began.
Part Of A Grim Pattern
The violence continues a disturbing trend of school attacks across Brazil that have claimed dozens of lives in recent years, prompting national debate about firearms access, campus safety and online radicalization of young males.
Two teenagers were killed and three wounded at a school in northeastern Ceara state in September 2025. That same state saw a 2022 school shooting in which a teenager fired on three classmates, killing one. In October 2023, a 17-year-old student was fatally shot and three others injured at a Sao Paulo school. Also in 2023, a teenager died and three were wounded when a knife-wielding attacker struck students leaving a Minas Gerais school.
The most lethal recent attack occurred in April 2023, when a 25-year-old man killed four children ages three to seven with an axe at a Santa Catarina daycare center. One year before that, a former student carrying a semiautomatic pistol and revolver killed four people and injured 12 in coordinated strikes on two schools. That shooter wore a swastika on his vest and had spent two years planning the attacks, police later determined.
Investigation Now Underway
Acre investigators face the task of reconstructing how a 13-year-old brought a loaded gun into a school, and whether anyone in his life noticed warning signs beforehand. The boy remains in custody. His stepfather, the legal owner of the firearm, must answer questions about its storage.
Rio Branco, a city of approximately 413,000 people in the western Amazon, had long viewed such attacks as distant tragedies. By Wednesday, the state government had renewed its condolences to the families of the slain women and promised a thorough investigation into how the violence occurred.
