Brazil shooting said to be first school massacre in nation's history

[malaise]

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2011/0407/Brazil-shooting-said-to-be-first-school-massacre-in-nation-s-history
<snip>
he Brazil school shooting this morning in the gritty Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Realengo left 11 students dead and a nation in shock over its first-ever school massacre.

"What happened has no precedent," Military Police Colonel Djalma Beltrame told the Monitor today as he guarded the gates to the four-story public school on the city's dangerous west side. He says police in the area responded in a matter of "seconds" upon hearing shots.

But even that was not quick enough to prevent 23-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, himself a former student at the Tasso da Silva Municipal School, from opening fire on students with two .38-caliber revolvers before killing himself. Ten girls and one boy were killed, and at least 17 more students were injured.

[slackmaster]

1. Yes, the tens of thousands of other children slaughtered in Brazil in the past weren't in school

:argh:

[Blue_Tires]

2. edit

deleted

[CreekDog]

3. Well the NRA worked it's magic during the election there in 2005

so. :eyes:

[Selatius]

4. That's a load of crap.

Just because it happened in the setting of a school doesn't detract from the fact that untold numbers of people in and around Rio and the rest of Brazil have died due to a high crime rate brought about by lack of aid to the poor, extremely high unemployment, lack of job opportunities, and a grotesque wealth gap that compares well to the United States that makes it hard for people to make a decent living without being lured by the easy money of crime and drugs.

How many students down there fall victim to gang violence or join gangs, but they don't get a mention when they die?

[TheWraith]

5. But the words "school shooting" are magic for the US media.

If one teenager gets murdered while in or near a school, it's front page news. When a teenager dies every day because instead of being in school, they had to join a gang to survive? Who cares about THEM? :sarcasm: