A high school teacher in Brazil survived a frightening classroom attack after a teenage student pulled out a knife and lunged at her while the two were alone inside the room, according to police and local reports.
The attack happened on the evening of Sept. 11 at Dr. Gerson dos Santos Peres State High School in Cametá, a city in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pará.
Security footage from inside the classroom shows mathematics teacher Betânia Almeida Prestes sitting at a desk as the student stands nearby. Moments later, the girl appears to pull a knife from her clothing and rush toward the teacher.
Prestes immediately fought back, grabbing at the student’s arm as the two struggled near the desk.
The teacher eventually managed to break free and run toward the classroom door, but police said she suffered a stab wound to her back during the confrontation.
The disturbing surveillance footage was published by Brazilian outlets and can be viewed here: Watch the classroom surveillance video
School employees called police after the attack.
According to Brazil’s Military Police, officers found the teenage student still at the school. She allegedly admitted using what authorities described as a hunting knife and told officers she had discarded it in a trash can inside the building.
Police later recovered the weapon.
Local reports said the student told authorities that she attacked Prestes because she did not like her.
Some reports have linked the confrontation to the teacher grading exams immediately before the attack. Footage appears to show Prestes working at her desk, and Brazilian outlets reported she may have been correcting tests at the time, but police have not publicly established that a particular grade was the motive.
That distinction is important because early accounts suggested the stabbing followed a dispute over a mathematics grade, while Brazilian police reporting cited by local outlets instead described the student’s stated motive simply as personal dislike.
Prestes, 38, was taken for emergency medical treatment.
She underwent a CT scan that showed the knife had not damaged any vital organs. The wound required stitches, and she was kept under observation before being released from the hospital the following day.
The school said the teacher was out of immediate danger.
The teenager was taken to the Civil Police station in Cametá, while her mother and Brazil’s Child Protection Council were also contacted. The Civil Police opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack.
Because the suspect is a minor, Brazil handles the case differently than it would an adult criminal prosecution.
Under Brazil’s Statute of the Child and Adolescent, people under 18 are not criminally responsible under the adult penal system. Instead, conduct that would constitute a crime for an adult is classified as an “infraction act,” and juvenile courts can impose socio-educational measures.
Those measures can range from a warning and community service to supervised release, semi-liberty or placement in a juvenile educational facility. Judges are instructed to consider both the seriousness of the alleged offense and the teenager’s circumstances.
That means reports claiming the teenager could simply be “charged with attempted homicide” under the same system used for an adult are somewhat misleading. Authorities can treat the alleged conduct as corresponding to a serious violent offense, but the legal process and potential consequences fall under Brazil’s juvenile justice system.
The violent confrontation has also renewed concern about attacks on educators in Brazil.
Local education groups condemned the incident, while the school community expressed support for Prestes as she recovered.
For the teacher, the outcome could easily have been far worse.
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