A level-headed school principal disarmed a 14-year-old boy carrying a loaded revolver to class in Coimbra yesterday, telling reporters afterwards: “I never believed he would shoot.”
The youngster in front of her was carrying a .32 calibre revolver with 30 bullets in his pockets.
He had painted his eyes black and face white – and he said he had a bomb waiting to detonate in a nearby corridor.
The child – known for suffering depression since finding his mother dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound – was “inspired by a character in the television cult series American Horror Story”, writes Correio da Manhã this morning.
But contrary to the carnage wreaked by “Tate”, in the episode Halloween Part 2, this young pupil was prevented from causing any harm at Cernache’s Jesuit Colégio da Imaculada Conceição.
His school head teacher managed to disarm him “after convincing him to accompany her to her office” writes CM, and the teen is now “interned” – CM is not specific as to where – while a disciplinary process has been opened.
It is not certain whether the young pupil will return to school any time soon.
Pupils have told CM how he is “difficult and verbally aggressive”.
The bomb he said he had in the corridor was found to be a tuning fork for his sister’s guitar.
Staff explained how the child has been suffering from depression since he was five years old. He is understood to have a father who is a doctor, aged “almost 80”.
Psychologist Carlos Poiares told the paper the doctor will have to be held responsible for his son having had access to the firearm.
