Carrying implements know to be designed to start fires
On 27 March 2026, an 18-year-old student allegedly carried out a mass stabbing at the Bishop Luis Silva Lezaeta Educational Foundation (Spanish: Fundación Educacional Obispo Luis Silva Lezaeta), in Calama, Chile, killing a school staff member and wounding another four people. According to police, the student carried multiple bladed weapons, gasoline, and an improvised flamethrower.
Attack
At around 10:30 a.m. on 27 March 2026, an 18-year-old student allegedly arrived on school grounds, carrying multiple bladed weapons in his backpack. He started stabbing students at random, injuring three, before school staff tried to intervene, at which point he turned the weapons on them. He allegedly wounded two members of school staff, killing one on the spot after stabbing her in the neck. He was then tackled by students and staff, who kept him immobilized and tried taking as many weapons away from him as possible. Upon the arrival of police, he attempted to commit suicide by stabbing.
The sole fatality was identified as María Victoria Reyes Vache, a 59-year-old female school supervisor. Another school supervisor, along with three more 15-year-old students, were injured.
Suspect
The suspect was identified as Hernán Cristóbal Meneses Leal, an 18-year-old student who was attending 12th grade at the time of the attack. According to a friend, he suffered from bullying and social rejection from the school community. Meneses has been diagnosed with Level 1 autism, major depressive disorder, and moderate mixed anxiety–depressive disorder.
Meneses allegedly detailed his plans in two notebooks, where he claimed that he wanted to kill as many young people as possible to spare them the isolation of growing up into adulthood, though he later amended his plans to simply kill as many people as he could before ending his own life. In these notebooks, he stated he was motivated by "hatred", "capitalism", and "misanthropy", along with admitting to hoping to kill between four and eight 1st graders due to their "purity". He supposedly stole $500,000 CLP (around $540 USD) from his mom, with which he purchased his weapons and gear. Meneses used to frequent different Discord groups where he shared his thoughts, apparently influenced by previous mass murders.
Shortly before the attack, the suspect allegedly posted a video on YouTube showing a photograph of the institution, followed by a red-filter image of himself wearing a balaclava, a supposed reference to the final video posted by Pekka-Eric Auvinen before perpetrating the Jokela school shooting.
Legal proceedings
On 31 March, Meneses had his first hearing, where he was officially charged with one count of qualified homicide, four counts of attempted qualified homicide, and one charge relating to carrying arson weapons.
Aftermath
The President of Chile, José Antonio Kast, condemned the attack, stating that "a school cannot be a place of violence", and instructed the heads of the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Security to travel north.
On March 30, students of the institute protested demanding that the attack sets a precedent to apply more security measures nationwide, including the implementation of metal detectors and backpack checks.
The attack led to a wave of copycat crimes throughout Chilean educational instructions. On 30 March, a 15-year-old student in Curicó was arrested after trying to enter his school with a loaded firearm. By 11 April, more than 60 schools were forced to suspend classes due to constant threats of oncoming attacks. On 23 July, two students, aged 10 and 11, were arrested in two different schools (one in Puente Alto and one in Lautaro), as they were found to have been plotting two simultaneous school stabbings in their respective cities. They were carrying knives and an unknown chemical substance.
