Last weekend, a man named Marcelo Arruda held a party in the southern Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu. Arruda was celebrating both his fiftieth birthday and the leftist candidacy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president and front-runner in the October presidential election against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Images of Lula blanketed the party, adorning everything from the walls to Arruda’s T-shirt. The outpouring of love for the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores, the Workers’ Party) wasn’t just for show — Arruda was the treasurer of his local PT branch and the party’s deputy mayor candidate in 2020.

But Arruda’s celebration was cut short by a visit from a pro-Bolsonaro prison guard named Jorge José da Rocha Guaranho. Enraged at Arruda’s ardent support for Lula, Guaranho confronted him at the party, only leaving after a heated argument. Twenty minutes later, wielding a gun and still ranting about Bolsonaro, Guaranho returned. A shoot-out between the two men ensued. Arruda died; Guaranho is currently in the hospital.

In response to this politically motivated killing, the PT has demanded a federal investigation into the murder and its perpetrator, whose social media is littered with right-wing memes. For his part, Bolsonaro has denied any responsibility for the killing and even took the opportunity to claim the Left is more violent than the Right, seemingly hoping people will forget his comments during his first run for president urging supporters to kill PT members.