A harrowing tragedy unravelled at the private Ivy League school, Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday (US time) amid exam season. At least two victims were killed and nine others wounded after reports of an active shooter emerged from the Barus and Holley engineering building.
The elite school relayed the active shooter report to students and faculty members via an alert at 4:22 pm local time, as per the New York Times. In the same message, the US university told everyone to lock their doors, silence their phones and stay hidden.
Consequently, anxiety-ridden scenes unfolded at Brown University. With all peace and calm disrupted, students were left with no choice but to abandon everything as it was and run for their lives after hearing gunshots. Some were even studying, as the marked student presence on campus this weekend was attributed to final exams, which marked the end of the autumn semester.
Witness accounts have since been pouring in as students shared their harrowing experiences with US reporters and media after the incident. At this time, little is known about the shooter, who still remains at large.
Shooting today: Brown University student witness accounts detailed
Brown University student Sophia Holman happened to hear the gunshots while she was searching for a classroom to study in the building. She told CNN that her initial thoughts on hearing the noise was that some experiment had wrong or that the sound had come from the school’s woodshop.
Upon seeing someone run past her, she followed suit. After running a block, she called police. Noting how “everyone’s pretty on edge,” Holman told the outlet, “There’s a lot of chaos and a lot of fear right now, but I think there’s also a lot of trust, trust that they [police] were there as quickly as they were, and that, you know, the medical staff are doing everything that they can for everyone that was injured.”
28-year-old Katie Sun was studying in in the Engineering Research Center lobby when she heard the gunshots as well. She ended up immediately exiting the building, leaving behind all her possessions and racing towards her dorm.
“It was honestly quite terrifying. The shots seemed like they were coming from … where the classrooms are,” as per the Brown Daily Herald.
Sun shared the same details with CNN: “I heard multiple gunshots, like bang, coming from the back, where the classrooms are.” While Katie herself was in the front area of the building, she didn’t see anything but the gunshots could still be heard vividly.
“At first, me and the other people that were there, we kind of froze, and someone was like ‘we have to go,’ and then everyone sprinted out,” she added. “Maybe 5 or 6,” Katie replied when asked how may gunshots were heard. Although not fully sure, she maintained that it was more than one or two.
Lydell Dyer, a third student, described the series of events from his perspective, sharing details with CNN. With the school going into shutdown, he said that with everyone gathered on the top floor, they had to put down the blinds and stay as quiet as possible. At the time of reporting, the student said there were 154 people locked up in the same space, as they stayed in the dark for their safety,
“There are currently 154 of us here and we’ve been trying out best to stay quiet, stay in the dark because the shooter is so close,” he told CNN.
A Brown University student texted his mother during the active shooter lockdown. According to CBS News, he wrote, “Mom, there’s a live shooting on campus. I’m going to run. I love you.”
Meanwhile, professor Rachel Friedberg told the NYT that the shooting began in a classroom where a Principles of Economics final exam review session was underway. Martyna Kaps, a student in the same class, told the Brown Daily Herald, “There were still people in the classroom. From what I heard, many of them dove behind the teacher’s desk and hid there to avoid the bullets.”
Freshman Shiney Mayanja, who was studying with some friends in a room, told CNN they were all “scared for their lives.”
She added, “This very much puts into perspective how much you need to value your life because you’d think nothing would happen here. It’s Brown.
“And you know, we’re going home next week, finals are almost over, but two people are now dead around Christmas time. So it’s just very much heartbreaking to see and it’s hard to process.”
A Brown University student working on a PhD in engineering told NBC News that he hid under desks for 2 hours after the campus alerts of an active shooter was sounded off. He revealed that the incident took place a block away from his position at the time. “There were three other students with me. We decided to turn the light off and close all the doors and hide under our desks and wait for the next notification,” he told the outlet.
While describing the scene at the university, Owen Fick, a junior at the school, saw a heavy presence of police and other authorities in the street when he had gone out to pick ice. “I really had no idea what was going on, but then it became really apparent,” he told NYT. “There were a lot of ambulances, a lot of cop cars, fire trucks. They just had a lot of gurneys.”
About the Brown University building where shooting happened
As revealed by the officials in a preliminary press conference, the shooting broke out in the Barus and Holley engineering building. It located on the eastern end of the downtown campus, according to the BBC.
The seven-storey building in question houses the School of Engineering and the physics department. The BBC report detailed that Barus and Holley consists of more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and three lecture halls.
During a follow-up press conference, deputy Providence police chief Timothy O’Hara said the shooting took place inside a classroom on the engineering building’s first floor.
Catherine Chen, a senior at the university, even described that part of campus as a popular hub for students. “That area has a lot of traffic because there’s also a library that’s very close by and it’s also on the way back from campus to some dorms,” she said, as per NYT. She also disclosed that students often ended up propping open the door to the building to study inside on weekends.
Mayor Brett Smiley of Providence has since told CNN that the doors to the building where the incident took place were unlocked as multiple final exams were being held there. “Based on what we heard from officials at Brown, anybody could have accessed the building at that time,” he added.
Several buildings across campus were ultimately put on lockdown.
This is an ongoing investigation.