A 13-year-old boy killed two female staff members and wounded two other people when he opened fire Tuesday, May 5, 2026, at Instituto São José, a public school in Rio Branco, Brazil, authorities said. The teenage suspect was in custody by the time officers reached the school in Acre state.

Investigators said the firearm used in the attack belonged to the boy’s stepfather, who was also detained while authorities work to determine how the teenager obtained the weapon. The stepfather is identified by police as the suspect’s legal guardian and the registered owner of the gun.

An 11-year-old girl was shot in the leg, and another staff member was injured during the shooting. The wounded student and staff member were transported to a hospital for treatment, while both women who were killed died at the scene. Relatives gathered outside the school, embracing and crying, as authorities withheld the names of the victims and emergency workers brought a woman out on a stretcher.

Witness Describes Terrified Students

Eduardo Rodrigues Cavalcante, a 19-year-old receptionist at a hotel next to the school, watched terrified students flee the building. Some climbed onto the roof while others tried to scale the concrete wall separating 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.”

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 determined that he was a student at the school.

Governor Suspends Classes, Sends Counselors

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 on 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.

Latest in Series of Deadly Attacks

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.

In April 2023, 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.

Also in 2023, a teenager died and three were wounded when a knife-wielding attacker struck students leaving a Minas Gerais school. In October 2023, a 17-year-old student was fatally shot and three others were injured at a Sao Paulo school. In 2022, a teenager fired on three classmates in northeastern Ceara state, killing one. Two teenagers were killed and three wounded at another Ceara school in September 2025.

Authorities Probe How Boy Accessed Gun

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. The boy remains in custody, and his stepfather was subsequently released after being charged with neglecting to keep the gun out of a child’s reach. He was fired from his state government job.

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.