A shooting at Brown University on December 13th left two students dead and nine others wounded. The shooting occurred inside the Barus and Holley engineering building around 4 P.M. Campus police responded quickly, and students were told to shelter in place as authorities searched for the suspect.
The two students who were killed were identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman. “These were two young people whose amazing promise was extinguished too soon,” stated Brown University President Christina Paxson, in a letter to the school community. Nine other students were hospitalized with gunshot wounds, most of which were later released.
Police identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, former Brown University graduate student with no current connection to the university. After fleeing the campus, Valente became the subject of a multi-day search involving state and federal agencies. He was found dead five days later on December 18th inside a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. An autopsy later revealed that he was already dead for two days before his body was found.
Authorities also connected Valente to the homicide of a MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, two days following the Brown shooting. Investigators said that evidence recovered during the search linked the two incidents, such as the same firearm that was used in the Brown shooting, and a recovered vehicle associated with Valente. Federal officials later released information showing that Valente had planned the attacks in advance, but did not establish a clear motive.
In response to the shooting, Brown University canceled the rest of the semester’s exams and provided counseling, shelter, and food for their students and staff. Vigils were held on campus to honor the victims, while officials continued to review campus safety procedures in the aftermath of the tragedy.
