A teenager was arrested in Brazil after he attacked a school with homemade explosives while wearing a Nazi armband on Monday.
The incident took place in Monte Mor, a small city about 75 miles northwest of Sao Paulo. No one was injured during the attack, according to the local authorities.
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Video footage published by local Brazilian news outlets captured the moment that the 17-year-old boy threw homemade bombs at the school. Surveillance cameras from within the school showed smoke filling the hallways and confused students fleeing.
“There was some turmoil, the children were scared, a thunderous noise, but everything calmed down with the arrival of the firefighters and more support from the Military Police,” Municipal Civil Guard inspector Denival Santana told Brazilian news outlet O Globo.
The attack took place on Monday morning when an estimated 300 students between the ages of 12 and 15 were attending classes. The teenager, who was not named by authorities because he is a minor, allegedly threw 5 molotov cocktails filled with gasoline and nails at the school. Two additional unexploded homemade bombs found at the scene were also disarmed by the firefighters.
Police responded to the attack within minutes and arrested the boy as he escaped with another Molotov cocktail and a hatchet. A photo released of the teenager showed him wearing all black and an armband with a Nazi swastika.
After his arrest, police searched his home and discovered Portuguese versions of Mein Khampf by Adolf Hitler, an airsoft rifle, and a notebook containing notes about Nazism. Police believe that the teenager acted alone and it was an isolated incident. Local media alleged that the teenager was a former student at the school, but that has not been confirmed by authorities.
Monday’s attack came less than three months after a school shooting in the Espirito Santo state in southeastern Brazil. A former student killed four people and wounded 12 others, while also wearing a Nazi swastika.
Nazi ideology in Brazil has existed since WWII, when many former party members and soldiers absconded to South America and began new lives there, along with nearby nations like Argentina and Paraguay. In recent years, neo-Nazi ideology has grown rapidly in Brazil, according to researchers.
Acclaimed Brazilian anthropologist, Adriana Dias, released a study in January 2022 that alleged that there are at least 530 neo-Nazi content extremist centers in Brazil, with around 10,000 members.
Gun-ownership in Brazil has ballooned in recent years. Former President Jair Bolsonaro expanded gun access to unprecedented levels. After he took office in 2019, the number of guns in civilian hands nearly tripled, to 2 million, while the number of registered gun owners has increased threefold to 1.56 million, according to the Sou da Paz Institute, which tracks gun violence in Brazil.
In one of the most violent countries in Latin America, civilian gun owners now outnumber the police and military combined. In one of his first acts when he took office in January, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, issued changes to tighten the nation’s gun laws.
