PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Journos News) – Newly released police recordings from the day of the Brown University shooting in December show the immediate response to a campus attack that left two students dead and nine others injured. Providence officials said Monday that portions of the footage were withheld or heavily redacted to protect victims and sensitive details.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley acknowledged the challenge of balancing public transparency with the potential harm that unedited material could cause. “This was a difficult process to maintain our commitment to transparency, respond to media requests, and respect the public’s right to know, while mitigating serious risks to victims,” Smiley said at a press briefing. The city said additional footage remains under review, with release decisions made in consultation with legal advisors.

Media outlets had sought body camera footage, audio clips, and other records since the shooting occurred in mid-December. Monday’s release includes roughly 20 minutes of body camera video and police radio audio from the initial response.

Police Response Captured in Redacted Footage

The audio records a campus police officer contacting city authorities at 4:07 p.m.: “This is Brown police. We have confirmed gunshots at 184 Hope Street. We do have a victim but we do not know where they are.” Minutes later, a follow-up call included a suspect description: “Wearing all black and a ski mask, unknown travel direction.”

The video shows officers navigating a tense, chaotic environment, moving students to safety, and searching for the shooter. Objects including backpacks and gloves are scattered across hallways as officers attempt to secure the building.

“Let’s get these rescues in, where are we staging rescue?” one officer says, later adding, “Shooter might still be in the building, so use caution, alright.” Large portions of the video are blacked out or obscured by the officer’s arms. Officials said the released video provides the most comprehensive view without exposing graphic content.

Mayor Smiley noted that additional footage would not clarify the shooter’s motives. “Why did this person do this? None of those videos are going to answer that question,” he said.

Confusion and Misidentification During the Response

Other recordings capture officers reporting a possible sighting of the shooter on the second floor of a nearby building and mistakenly detaining a maintenance worker. Within minutes, officers realized the error and resumed the search.

City officials said the records were withheld until after a memorial service on campus at the request of the victims’ families. Smiley described families as “remarkably strong and resilient” and expressed concern that premature release could impede their recovery.

Shooting Details

On December 13, gunman Claudio Neves Valente, 48, entered a study session in a Brown academic building, killing 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and wounding nine others. A police incident report released Monday described victims’ emotional reactions when shown photographs of the suspect.

Authorities have also linked Neves Valente to the fatal shooting of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his Boston-area home. Neves Valente, who had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal during the 1990s, was found dead days later in a New Hampshire storage facility.

The U.S. Justice Department said Neves Valente had planned the attacks for years. Investigators recovered videos from a storage unit in which he confessed to the killings, though he provided no explanation for his actions.

Source: AP News – New video footage released from day of the fatal Brown University shooting

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According to a statement from federal prosecutors in Massachusetts, Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, was identified as the primary suspect in both incidents. Authorities said he was found dead Thursday evening inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire, from what investigators described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Prosecutors said federal agents entered the storage facility at approximately 9 p.m. while searching for Neves-Valente. “Federal agents found Neves-Valente deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound,” U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said during a press briefing.

Investigation Details

Police in Providence said the investigation into the Brown University shooting, which occurred Saturday during a finals-week study session, remains ongoing. Authorities said two students were killed and nine others injured when a gunman opened fire inside a campus academic building.

Officials later identified the deceased students as Ella Cook of Alabama and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov of Virginia. Six injured individuals remained hospitalized in stable condition as of Thursday, according to authorities.

Investigators said surveillance footage and witness accounts led to the identification of a person of interest in the days following the shooting. Police confirmed that an individual initially questioned in connection with the case was later ruled out.

Connection to MIT Case

Massachusetts authorities said Neves-Valente is also suspected in the fatal shooting of an MIT professor, identified as nuclear physicist Nuno Loureiro, who was found with gunshot wounds at his residence in Brookline earlier in the week.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts said the cases are being handled under federal jurisdiction, with coordination between local and state law enforcement agencies.

Authorities have not disclosed a confirmed motive linking the two incidents. Investigators said the inquiry remains active.

Background

Brown University officials said Neves-Valente briefly attended the institution between 2000 and 2001, studying physics before taking a leave of absence and later withdrawing. University President Christina Paxson said he had no current affiliation with the university.

Officials also referenced records from a Portuguese academic institution indicating that an individual with the same name had previously held a monitoring position before being terminated in 2000. Authorities said they are working to confirm the individual’s full background.

Public Safety and Ongoing Inquiry

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said the community remains on alert as authorities continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shootings. Law enforcement agencies have urged anyone with relevant information to come forward.

Officials emphasized that, while the suspect has been identified and located deceased, the investigation into both incidents remains active, including efforts to determine motive and any potential additional factors.

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By the end of the day, two people were dead and nine others injured in a shooting near the university’s engineering building in Providence. For Tretta, who was 15 when she was wounded in the 2019 attack that killed two classmates in Santa Clarita, the recurrence of campus violence felt both personal and emblematic of a wider pattern among her generation.

“No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two,” Tretta said in a phone interview a day after the latest attack. “I never thought that this was something I’d have to go through again.”

A Generation Shaped by Lockdowns

Tretta’s experience reflects a broader reality confronting many American students who grew up practicing active-shooter drills and lockdown procedures. For some, those rehearsals have given way to repeated encounters with real violence.

In recent years, several survivors of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida have reported experiencing subsequent shootings after enrolling in college. The recurrence underscores how mass violence, once perceived as isolated tragedies, can mark students’ lives across different stages of education.

At Brown, the alerts on Saturday instructed students to lock down and stay away from windows. Tretta said she initially tried to dismiss the possibility that another shooting was underway. As the warnings continued, the language became unmistakable.

She had chosen Brown in part because it felt like a place where she could rebuild a sense of normalcy. “I chose Brown because it felt like somewhere I could finally be safe,” she said. “And it’s happened again.”

Personal Histories Collide

Tretta is not alone among her peers in carrying earlier trauma. Zoe Weissman, another Brown student, wrote on social media that she attended middle school in Parkland, Florida, adjacent to the high school where 17 people were killed in 2018. She recalled hearing gunshots and seeing first responders as events unfolded.

For Ben Greenberg, a sophomore at Brown, violence entered his life in a different way. In 2022, while he was in high school in Kentucky, a gunman opened fire at his father’s campaign office. His father, Craig Greenberg — now the mayor of Louisville — survived what authorities described as an assassination attempt.

Greenberg said the experience left him perpetually anxious about his family’s safety. When he moved to Providence for college, he believed some of that tension would ease. On Saturday, he was at home across the street from the building where the shooting occurred.

Fearing the possibility that the gunman might seek refuge nearby, he and his roommates barricaded their stairwell with a mini refrigerator and a bookcase. They placed bottles behind the makeshift barrier so that any disturbance would create noise.

“The impact of gun violence goes far beyond the individuals who are wounded or killed,” Mayor Greenberg said, reflecting on both the attack in Kentucky and the shooting in Providence. “Those impacts are real. They’re traumatic wounds.”

Advocacy and Research Interrupted

After surviving the 2019 shooting at Saugus High School, Tretta became active in gun-control advocacy. She rose to a leadership position with Students Demand Action, a youth-led group focused on tightening firearm laws. Her work brought her to meetings at the White House during the Biden administration and to discussions with then–Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Tretta has focused in particular on so-called “ghost guns” — firearms assembled from parts that can be difficult to trace — similar to the weapon used in the attack at her high school. Federal regulators have in recent years sought to clarify rules governing such kits, amid debate over enforcement and constitutional limits.

At Brown, Tretta studies international and public affairs and education. In a coincidence she described as unsettling, she had been preparing a paper examining the educational paths of students who have survived school shootings. The assignment was due within days of the latest attack.

Saturday marked the first time she had received an active-shooter alert at Brown. The familiarity of the language — instructions to lock down, silence phones, avoid windows — brought back memories she had hoped would remain in the past.

Enduring Questions

The Providence shooting adds to a continuing national debate over gun policy and campus security. While details of the suspect and motive were still emerging, the immediate toll was clear: two lives lost, nine people injured, and a campus community grappling with shock.

For students like Tretta and Greenberg, the episode reinforces a sense that the boundaries between high school and college — and between one tragedy and another — can blur.

Tretta said she had believed college would offer distance from the violence that shaped her adolescence. Instead, she found herself reliving familiar fears during what should have been an ordinary weekend of studying for exams.

“It didn’t have to,” she said quietly.

Source: LA Times – A Saugus High shooting survivor, now at Brown University, endures campus tragedy again

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