City Of God: Gunman In Brazil Kills 12 Children In School [Video]

RIO DE JANEIRO – Stalking the halls of his one-time elementary school, 23-year-old Wellington Oliveira killed 10 girls and two boys, most with shots to their heads even as children begged him to stop, witnesses said.

Oliveira then took his own life after police gunfire struck his legs and sent him toppling down some stairs, but not before carrying out what crime experts are calling the worst school massacre in Brazil’s history.

Witnesses said he entered the Tasso da Silveira school in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday armed with two pistols and an ammunition belt, shooting at students and repeatedly yelling: “I’m going to kill you all!”

“He had already killed a lot of children in the first floor and in the yard,” student Jade Ramos told the Globo television network. “He kept telling the kids to face the wall and was shooting at their heads. The children kept begging, ‘No, please!’ There was a lot of blood, children agonizing on the stairs.”

Ramos said she escaped by running into a classroom, where a teacher locked the door and barricaded it with tables. Images taken with a cellphone and posted on YouTube showed students fleeing wildly, screaming for help, many with their white and blue school shirts soaked in blood.