The Candelaria Massacre indeed had an unusual number of children killed, however, this episode was “not far from an unusual occurrence” (Penglase, ix). Shootings in Brazil started to be common in the 1980’s and 1990’s. According to the Brazilian Public Ministry, in the period of three years between 1988 and 1991, over five thousand five hundred children were victims of violent shootings. (Penglase, ix) Social disparity in Brazil can also be seen in the shootings, because most of the children killed were extremely poor and a “disproportionate share are black” (Penglase, ix). What caused the massacre is what is left behind the shadow, because it lays between either drug-related issues or plain death squads that were starting to become common in a post-authoritarian government (Leeds, 48). The Candelaria Massacre fell into the pattern of the killings that were happening in Brazil. In the night of the massacre, the children stoned the policemen’s car and allegedly, the policeman said they would be back. The kids were asleep in the porch of the Candelária Church, in the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The policemen came back and opened fire in the direction of the group of fortyfive to fifty kids, killing six of them on the spot. One of them, Sandro Rosa do Nascimento, got shot and ran towards an alley; he was found by the some of the police officers who shot the defenseless boy point-blank three times, however he was taken to a hospital and survived the shooting.