MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Shooter at latest Brazil high school massacre found dead in his cell

A second suspect remains under arrest, authorities confirmed

The 21-year-old shooter who killed two teenagers at a high school in the Brazilian State of Parana earlier this week “was found dead in his cell Tuesday night,” authorities said. “The circumstances” of his death are under investigation, Parana's Public Security Secretariat also explained.

The attack occurred on Monday at the Professor Helena Kolody school, in the municipality of Cambé in the metropolitan region of Londrina. The assailant entered his former school under the pretext of looking for his “school record” and then opened fire, killing a student on the spot and seriously wounding another who died the following day.

Parana authorities eventually confirmed the death of “multiple organ failure” at the University Hospital of Londrina of Luan Augusto da Silva, who had been wounded in the head during the attack. Aged 16, da Silva is the second fatal victim of the tragedy, after the death on Monday of his partner, Karoline Verri, aged 17.

A second 21-year-old man, suspected of having collaborated with the organization of the attack, remains under arrest.

Attacks in schools have recently increased in Brazil and authorities attribute the rise, in part, to incitement to violent content on social networks.

In April, four children between the ages of 4 and 7 were killed in a kindergarten in Blumenau, in Santa Catarina by a man who attacked them with an axe. The murders shocked the country and the federal government announced measures to regulate social networks to combat the growing threats against schools.

The worst recorded attack on an educational center in Brazil occurred in 2011 when 12 children were shot dead in Realengo, a suburb in Rio de Janeiro. The perpetrator then took his own life.

The website of the state's Public Security Secretariat stated that the assailant had been arrested by a school teacher and officials. After the attack, the police confiscated an axe, loads of quick-change ammunition, and a .38 caliber revolver.

The teacher who immobilized the attacker “had undergone recent training and the police arrived at the school in just three minutes, which prevented an even greater tragedy,” Paraná Governor Carlos Ratinho Junior had said.

Read also: Teenager killed in another high-school shooting in Brazil