Brown University Unveils New Safety Plans In Wake Of Mass Shooting

PROVIDENCE, RI — The new Brown University interim vice president of public safety outlined his plans to bolster campus security in the wake of the Dec. 13 mass shooting that claimed the lives of two students and wounded nine others.

"There are no words that can fully capture the deep sense of loss, grief and pain many of you are feeling, while some also have natural feelings of anxiety and lingering fear," the interim vice president, former Providence Police Chief Hugh T. Clements, said in his letter to the Brown community detailing his safety strategy.

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Clements replaced Vice President for Public Safety and Emergency Management Rodney Chatman, who was placed on administrative leave, "effective immediately," nine days after the mass shooting, the university said in a statement issued Dec. 22.

"I want to say clearly and unequivocally: What happened on Dec. 13 should never happen again — at Brown or anywhere — and we must confront that imperative for our community with steadfast purpose," Clements said in his letter.

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Clements plan to confront that imperative includes a continued elevated public safety presence, as well as a transition to card access for buildings requiring keys for entry, adding blue light phones with integrated cameras, and installing more security cameras and panic buttons, among other things.

A gunman fired at least 44 shots in the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, killing two and wounding eight others the afternoon of Dec. 13. The Providence police and the FBI identified the shooter as Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown student and Portuguese national living in Miami.

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Neves Valente was also linked to the shooting death of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro, who was found mortally wounded in his Brookline home Dec. 15, with the feds calling the connection a certainty.

Five days after the Brown University mass shooting, Neves Valente was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Salem, New Hampshire, storage unit.

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The U.S. Department of Education announced nine days after the shooting that it was reviewing Brown University's safety measures.

DOE's Office of Federal Student Aid will probe whether Brown violated the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, "which requires institutions of higher education to meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid," according to a media release from the Department of Education.

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