A school shooting happened this morning in Rio de Janeiro at a poor part of the city. Some people are twitting that it has to do with Columbine or is a terrorist act. No. It has nothing to do either with Columbine or a terrorist act.
At least 13 dead, including gunman.
Never in the history of Rio de Janeiro an event like this happened. I will publish more later.
The gunman left a note.
Image: people waiting for news or just watching. Reuters via Al Jazeera.
Update: 04.30 p.m. GMT
I'm watching the news at TV and of course it is too soon to have any kind of answer. The problem is that it is hard to trust the institutions that are involved in the case and, of course, the mainstream media. I just wrote because I was amazed by the Columbine association some Brazilians did, as if it was glamorous having school shooting in Brazil just like in US.
But if Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, 23 years-old, who killed himself after being shot by a policeman, was taking any psychiatric drugs like Eric Harris, the Columbine boy was, Zoloft that was changed to Luvox, surely Brazilians will not know just like Americans don't know that antidepressants SSRIs are responsible for many of the school shootings in America as the FOX video shows.
Calling it a terrorist act is something I'm trying to understand but it has to do with something that was written in the note Wellington left and where he also is presumed to say he wanted to kill himself. This note is not yet available to the public.
It will take a while till I write about it again because I will wait for details and we know that these cases take time.
Update: 06:00 p.m. GMT
The whole day the Brazilian TV is focusing on this crime and journalists, psychiatrists, people related to security are giving their opinions.
Bottom line: It is time for catharsis and not journalism and in times like this there is no space for a real debate about mental health or about how to prevent crimes like that.
Wellington had studied at this school. It is ironic that although there is a word in Portuguese for bullying the English word is being used and a lot is being said about it since 2010.
It was said the note the murderer, that's the way he is being called in a way to calm down family members of that those children who died or were injured, left made no sense or was all disconnected. It was also said that he was related to a kind of Islamic religion. It was also said that in the note he claimed he was HIV positive. One of the psychiatrist killed Wellington once again this time morally. She said that his act was the spectacular way he found to give himself an identity. It was said that maybe he was bullied... and it is being said a lot of things... but ... misinformations are being spread instead of awareness. Wellington had studied at this school and it is not being taken as serious as it should. It is ironic that although there is a word in Portuguese for bullying the English word is being used and a lot is being said about it since 2010.
Let's wait for tomorrow.
But this is the last update for this post and I will only post again about this tragedy when the cathartic mood is over.
May all these children R.I.P.
