Colegio Americano del Noreste shooting

On the morning of January 18, 2017, at approximately 8:51 a.m., a 16-year-old student identified as Federico Guevara opened fire with a .22 LR caliber handgun inside a classroom at Colegio Americano del Noreste in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. According to the Wikipedia account of the incident, Guevara, seated at his desk, shot a classmate at point-blank range before firing at his teacher, Cecilia Cristina Solís, and other students between 13 and 14 years old.

Guevara then attempted to shoot himself in the right temple but missed, striking his chin instead, and ran out of ammunition. He reloaded the weapon using cartridges stored in his backpack and shot himself again. He later died in the hospital. Students Ana Cecilia Ramos and Luis Fernando Martínez, both 14, along with teacher Cecilia Cristina Solís, 24, suffered critical head injuries and were listed in critical condition. Solís died in the hospital approximately two months after the shooting. A fourth student, 14-year-old Mariel Chávez, suffered an arm injury but was declared stable. The source states that Guevara had psychological problems.

The attack was captured by closed-circuit cameras installed in the classroom, and footage was published by the Mexican newspaper Reforma. The video subsequently circulated on social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook, prompting Mexico's Secretary of the Interior, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, to order verification of the images. Nuevo León Governor Jaime Rodríguez Calderón described the sharing of the video as "perverse and morbid," and the state prosecutor indicated that whoever leaked the footage would face punishment.

The shooting drew reactions from national figures. President Enrique Peña Nieto expressed condolences via Twitter and later stated in a video that classroom security was a matter of national concern. Governor Rodríguez Calderón called for parents to be attentive to their children. Secretary of Public Education Aurelio Nuño Mayer characterized the incident as "unacceptable violence." Enrique Graue Wiechers, rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, suggested the event might reflect a society "losing many values." Senators, including Angélica de la Peña, discussed measures such as backpack inspections, with de la Peña cautioning against approaches that could criminalize school-age children.

On the evening of the shooting, families and relatives gathered at the school's gate with flowers, candles, and white balloons. The following day, Google added a black ribbon in acknowledgment of the tragedy, and the school's Facebook account was hacked by a group identifying itself as "Legión Holk," which Mexican authorities later characterized as involving apocryphal accounts.

Background context notes that Mexico's Secretariat of Public Education had implemented the "Safe School Program" beginning in 2007 in several states amid rising violence, including a "Safe Backpack" inspection initiative. According to Nuevo León state prosecutor Aldo Fasci, this program was applied in 90% of public schools in the state at the time of the attack, but private schools, including the one involved, often lacked such checks due to parental objections.