Students return to Brown University amid questions over security policies that enabled mass shooting

Brown University began a caller semester connected Tuesday greeting arsenic the field inactive remains shaken by a wide shooting that took the lives of 2 students and sent 9 injured students to the hospital. 

Questions stay surrounding the information of Brown’s field aft arguable information measures allowed a slayer to successfully transportation retired a deadly shooting, and a failed contiguous apprehension fto the gunman spell connected to instrumentality the beingness of an MIT prof days aft the onslaught astatine the Ivy League school.

Jack DiPrimio, a postgraduate pupil astatine Brown University, says being backmost astatine schoolhouse for the outpouring semester has presented challenges pursuing the shooting.

"Being backmost astatine the spot wherever [this incident] transpired a period ago, it feels truthful caller and raw," DiPrimio told Fox News Digital. "The memorials are beautiful, but they’re besides truly hard to locomotion by due to the fact that I get affectional seeing [Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov] and [Ella Cook’s] faces. It’s weird to spot your friend’s [face] successful a memorial."

Visitors intermission astatine a makeshift memorial for the victims of Saturday's shooting, astatine the Van Wickle Gate astatine Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, successful Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

EVIDENCE SHOWS DEADLY BROWN, MIT SHOOTINGS MAY BE LINKED, SOURCES SAY: REPORT

Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, was the gunman authorities accidental was liable for the shootings. The Department of Justice released a transcript of a signaling Neves-Valente made pursuing the attack, which reveals helium had been plotting the shooting for immoderate time.

"It's done. It was, it was six months, man. Not six months, six semesters. Uh. I had already planned this for a small more," the transcript reads. "It was each a small incompetent but astatine slightest thing was done."

Nuno Loureiro, a prof astatine MIT, and Brown University students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov were victims of Neves Valente’s aggregate attacks.

DISPATCH RECORDS FROM BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTING CAPTURE CHAOS OF DEADLY CAMPUS ATTACK

Brown University faced aggravated scrutiny implicit however the shooter escaped section authorities, and however his individuality was chiefly discovered owed to an enactment with a stateless antheral who was surviving connected campus. 

Interior presumption of Barus and Holley Room 166 connected the field of Brown University successful Providence, R.I. On Saturday, December 13, astatine astir 4 p.m., a antheral with a weapon entered a reappraisal league successful Barus & Holley Room 166 for ECON 0110: "Principles of Economics" and opened fire, shooting 11 students. (Kenna Lee/The Brown Daily Herald)

The stateless man, known by the pseudonym John, had been surviving successful the basement of Brown’s Barus and Holley engineering building. When constabulary could not place him themselves, they asked the nationalist via societal media to assistance find idiosyncratic who had been adjacent the existent idiosyncratic of interest.

It is unclear whether the antheral is inactive surviving connected the Ivy League campus.

The information policies enactment successful spot by Brown were criticized by the Trump administration. 

"Brown’s field surveillance and information strategy whitethorn not person been up to due standards, allowing the fishy to fly portion the assemblage seemed incapable to supply adjuvant accusation astir the illustration of the alleged assassin," a Dec. 22 property merchandise from the Department of Education reads. 

"Additionally, galore Brown students and unit reported that the university’s exigency notifications astir the progressive shooter were delayed, raising important concerns astir their information alert system. If true, these shortcomings represent superior breaches of Brown’s responsibilities nether national law," the connection continues. 

WHO IS CHRISTINA PAXSON? THE BROWN UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT FACING INCREASED SCRUTINY OVER MASS SHOOTING RESPONSE

Brown University president Christina Paxson issued a connection the week aft the shooting with details connected updated information measures, and the assemblage said it plans to instrumentality a stricter ID paper policy.

"In addition, Barus & Holley lecture halls 166 and 168, 8 instantly adjacent and proximate classrooms (155 done 165), and the instantly adjacent hallways, restrooms and entrances to that country of Barus & Holley volition beryllium closed and inaccessible to everyone," the school’s administrative officials wrote to the Brown assemblage successful a Jan. 16 email obtained by Brown Daily Herald.

Providence, RI - December 13: Brown University President Christina H. Paxson speaks during a property league aft a wide shooting prompted a lockdown connected field connected December 13, 2025.  (Getty)

Paxson said that determination would besides beryllium a accelerated effect squad designed to absorption connected safety, an after-action reappraisal to measure the events starring up to the shooting, and behaviour an outer information appraisal of the "perimeter of buildings, entree points, cameras and technology, and different infrastructure conditions" successful a connection made the week aft the shooting.

NOEM ANNOUNCES PAUSE ON IMMIGRANT VISA LOTTERY THAT ALLOWED ALLEGED BROWN SHOOTER TO ENTER US

DiPrimio hopes that the assemblage volition larn from the erstwhile incident, and noted helium has seen changes connected campus. 

"There’s a batch of caller exigency resources, exigency buttons connected campus. I’m seeing a batch much security, physically connected the ground," said DiPrimio. "I anticipation Brown tin larn and determination guardant from this. I anticipation that we travel unneurotic arsenic a community, and we don’t teardrop each different apart."

Federal prosecutors successful Massachusetts released this representation showing the antheral identified successful deadly shootings astatine some Brown University successful Rhode Island and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology successful Cambridge. (Justice Department)

As Brown University students instrumentality to campus, immoderate person decided to signifier a caller radical called "Students Demand Action astatine Brown University." The radical volition stitchery for its archetypal gathering of the semester connected Wednesday, Jan. 21, according to the group’s societal media.

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"I privation to recognize the strategy moving guardant to portion unneurotic what circumstantial actions tin beryllium taken successful Rhode Island oregon New England," said DiPrimio. "I privation to spot changes federally connected mag capableness laws, but I deliberation we request to commencement with piecemeal. Changes we tin really execute successful a bipartisan way."

Fox News Digital reached retired to Brown University but did not person a effect successful clip for publication.

Preston Mizell is simply a writer with Fox News. Story tips tin beryllium sent to [email protected] and connected X @MizellPreston