2004 Carmen de Patagones school shooting

On the morning of 28 September 2004, a mass shooting occurred at middle school N°202 "Islas Malvinas" in Carmen de Patagones, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. At approximately 7:35 a.m., when classes were starting, authorities identified 15-year-old student Rafael "Juniors" Solich as the person who entered classroom 1° B and opened fire on his classmates using a Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol belonging to his father, a subofficial in the Argentine Naval Prefecture. According to those accounts, he had brought the weapon, two full magazines, and a hunting knife hidden in a military coat into the school, which had around 400 students in attendance that day.

Those accounts state that Solich discharged his entire magazine on his classmates without speaking, then moved into the hall, reloaded, and fired again at a school buffet worker without hitting them. They further report that he continued through the main hall until classmate and close friend Dante Pena tackled him and took away the weapon. Solich did not resist arrest and was transferred to Bahía Blanca. Three classmates, aged 15 and 16, were killed, and five other students were wounded in the classroom attack.

Background details reported include that Solich's father had nicknamed him after the football club Boca Juniors, and that Solich had one close friend, Dante, with whom he communicated in English and shared an interest in Marilyn Manson and Satanic imagery. The pair had reportedly watched the film Elephant, which depicts a school shooting modeled on the Columbine High School massacre, and Solich reportedly listened to the Marilyn Manson song "The Nobodies," which references the Columbine perpetrators, the night before the attack. He told a judge he had been planning "something" since the seventh grade and had long harbored anger toward peers, but he did not provide a clear motive when asked.

Because Solich was 15 at the time, below Argentina's age of criminal responsibility of 16, he was not criminally prosecuted. His father was jailed for 45 days and required to relinquish his firearm. Solich was diagnosed with schizophrenia and a personality disorder while in medical custody and remained in psychiatric care until 2007, after which he was gradually granted increasing hours of liberty from a hospital in La Plata. As of September 2014, he was reported to be neither working nor studying, and as of 2022 he had one son.

The then-president, Néstor Kirchner, described the shooting as "painful" and declared two national days of mourning; schools nationwide held reflection events using a letter distributed by the Ministry of Education. Solich's family was evacuated from Carmen de Patagones after the attack, and Dante Pena and his family were also relocated after facing community ostracism over suspicion of prior knowledge. Victims' families sued the Naval Prefecture and the provincial Schools Department for 12 million Argentine pesos. Following a 2006 mass shooting in Belgrano, Buenos Aires, survivors and victims' relatives from both incidents joined a gun-control advocacy campaign through the Red Argentina para el Desarme (Argentine Network for Disarmament).