The BareStory
A shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday left two students dead and nine others injured. The incident occurred around 4 p.m. inside a classroom in the university’s Barus and Holley engineering building when a gunman opened fire. The shooter remains at large, and a manhunt is ongoing.
The deceased students were identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman from Virginia who was a naturalized citizen from Uzbekistan. According to statements, Cook was the vice president of the Brown University College Republicans. Umurzokov’s family said he was an aspiring neurosurgeon who was helping a friend study for an economics final when the shooting happened.
Authorities have released surveillance video of a person of interest seen near the campus and are asking the public for assistance. A different person of interest was taken into custody on Sunday but was released later that night after Rhode Island's attorney general stated that evidence pointed in a different direction. The Providence mayor has urged the public to submit any information to investigators.
Following the attack, Brown University canceled all remaining classes and exams for the semester. A shelter-in-place order on campus was lifted Sunday morning. The university’s emergency response has drawn scrutiny, with one report indicating an initial alert to students was delayed by 17 minutes and that campus emergency sirens were not activated. According to one account, Brown's director of public safety attributed the failure to sound the sirens to the "hectic nature of the crisis."
How it may affect me
As a U.S. reader:
• A manhunt for the at-large shooter in Providence creates a regional public safety risk, as authorities are asking the public for assistance with the investigation.
• Scrutiny over Brown's delayed emergency alert and silent sirens may prompt other U.S. universities to review their own campus safety and communication procedures.
• The cancellation of all remaining classes and exams at a major university shows how these incidents can abruptly disrupt the academic year for students and faculty.
