On 7 April, 23-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira entered a school in Rio de Janeiro brandishing a gun. He killed 12 students and injured more than 20 others before shooting himself. Although Brazil has become increasingly associated with violence and gun crime in recent years, this was the first time in the country’s history that a school has been the target of a shooting, drawing comparisons with the 1999 Columbine massacre.