What Makes a Sweet Child Shoot His Teacher and Commit Suicide?
No one has ever been able to explain why he did that, but there are those who believe they know the answer.
Studious, homebody, funny, religious. These were some words used to describe ten-year-old Davi Mota Nogueira, who shot an elementary school teacher and committed suicide in 2011.
Davi lived in São Caetano do Sul, São Paulo with his mother Elenice Silva, his father Milton Nogueira, and his fourteen-year-old brother Gleison Mota. They were a Christian family and both parents had no complaints about their children, which they truly trusted.
Davi and Gleison attended Alcina Dantas Feijão school, just ten minutes from their residence. Their classes started at 1 pm and Milton took them to school on September 22nd. To Milton’s surprise, after he returned home and showered, he realized that his .38-caliber revolver was not inside the wardrobe, where he used to keep it.
Milton was a Civil Guard and sometimes moonlighted as a security guard. The gun was his working tool. He phoned Elenice and asked if she had taken his revolver, but she denied it. That said, he returned to the school around 1:20 pm and asked his kids in person. “Dad, I didn’t take it,” answered Davi when questioned.
Unexpectedly, about 2 hours later, Milton received a phone call from his older son.
“Dad, it was Davi who brought your gun,”
Davi had always gotten good grades and was described by his teachers as a sweet boy who had never gotten in trouble and was not bullied. On the other hand, some students recalled that he used to be taunted. Nine-year-old Guilherme, Davi’s friend, mentioned that Davi was once called ‘gay’ for having good handwriting and for being attentive and studious. Despite that, he had never shown interest in firearms nor was he taking medication.
With that being said, Davi put his dad’s revolver in his backpack and took it to school.
Early in the afternoon, he took algebra and science classes. None of his teachers noticed anything wrong with him, neither did his brother, who remembers that Davi was seemingly happy and calm.
Around 3:30 pm, thirty-eight-year-old Portuguese teacher Rosileide Queiros de Oliveira walked into the fourth-grade classroom; Davi’s classroom. He had gone to the bathroom and soon returned to class. It may seem like a typical situation, but nobody could have predicted what would happen next. Davi did not return to his seat. In fact, he pulled out his dad’s .38-caliber revolver and shot Rosileide in the back while she was in front of the board — in front of his twenty-five classmates.
He immediately walked out the door and headed towards the stairs, right next to his classroom. While his classmates were frightened and his teacher was lying on the floor, Davi shot himself in the head on the staircase. The school coordinator, Meire Cunha, reached him and stayed at his side while waiting for the ambulance.
Davi died at the hospital about an hour later.
“I didn’t feel the bullet. I only heard a noise.”
After the tragic incident, rumors were made public. Some students recalled hearing Davi say that he had a gun and would kill teacher ‘Rosi’ before committing suicide, but they allegedly thought he was just kidding. Others said that she was a bit rude.
As Davi pulled the trigger, people first thought it was a firecracker. His brother, however, immediately knew what had actually happened.
Rosileide heard the gunshot, but didn’t feel the bullet. As she fell to the floor and saw blood on her hands, she thought there was a massacre going on. But at no time did she see who had done that to her, neither did she know that he shot himself.
Rosileide was shot in the lumbar spine and underwent surgery to remove the bullet. She also had to repair a fractured kneecap as a result of her fall. She was discharged from the hospital on September 29, seven days after the tragedy.
She stated that Davi was a good boy and an exemplary student, never having any reason to argue or punish him in any way. His family allegedly tried to contact her in a bid to ask for forgiveness, but the meeting never happened.
An inquiry was launched to determine whether Milton could be charged with criminal negligence and to find out what could have motivated the attack. Notwithstanding, the police chief Lucy Fernandes concluded that Milton could not be considered criminally negligent. “We investigated whether there was someone who facilitated or induced the boy’s access to the gun. However, we have not found any of this. Unfortunately, it was a fatality.”
Milton claimed that he always kept the gun in his wardrobe and the ammunition in a drawer. Unfortunately, the day before the attack, he hurried home from work to take his oldest child to the dentist and put the loaded gun in the wardrobe. He alleged that his children were educated about the dangers of firearms.
Previous tragedy — Was it an Inspiration?
To this day, there are people who believe that Davi was inspired by a massacre that occurred five months earlier and consequently premeditated his attack.
On the 7th of April 2011, twenty-three-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira entered his former school in Rio de Janeiro with .38 and .32 caliber revolvers and killed twelve students; he then shot himself in the head on the staircase. The case made national headlines and the photo of the perpetrator’s dead body got featured on the cover of magazines across the country. He left at least five videos talking about the bullying he had suffered at that school from 1999 to 2002 and about his desire to wreak vengeance.
The drawing left by Davi raised questions. Many believed that the drawing was a representation of himself with a firearm at his school in 2017, according to his writing. But it was not the only thing that nurtured the belief that he had premeditated the attack. His brother, Gleison, stated that about two weeks before the tragedy, Davi asked: Are you going to feel sad if I die?
Even though we don’t know whether Davi was really inspired by Wellington Menezes, that was the deadliest school shooting in Brazil to date and served as an inspiration for other children.
