Feds To Review Brown University For Possible Campus Safety Act Violations: DOE

PROVIDENCE, RI — The U.S. Department of Education announced it was reviewing Brown University's safety measures in the wake of Dec. 13's mass shooting and the school placed its vice president for public safety and emergency management on administrative leave "effective immediately."

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 issued Monday.

"In the hours after the shooting, public reporting appeared to show that Brown’s campus surveillance and security system may not have been up to appropriate standards, allowing the suspect to flee while the university seemed unable to provide helpful information about the profile of the alleged assassin," the release said.

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"Additionally, many Brown students and staff reported that the university’s emergency notifications about the active shooter were delayed, raising significant concerns about their safety alert system. If true, these shortcomings constitute serious breaches of Brown’s responsibilities under federal law," according to the release.

“After two students were horrifically murdered at Brown University when a shooter opened fire in a campus building, the Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in the release.

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“Students deserve to feel safe at school, and every university across this nation must protect their students and be equipped with adequate resources to aid law enforcement," McMahon said. "The Trump Administration will fight to ensure that recipients of federal funding are vigorously protecting students’ safety and following security procedures as required under federal law.”

Also Monday, Brown retained the services of former U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha to assist in the aftermath of the mass shooting.

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"Brown works routinely with outside counsel whose expertise complements that of the University's Office of the General Counsel," Brian E. Clark, Brown's vice president for news and strategic campus communications, said in an email.

"In this case, we retained Zachary Cunha, the former United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, to assist the University in coordinating with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies," Clark said.

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.

Later Monday, Brown issued a statement saying, "Vice President for Public Safety and Emergency Management Rodney Chatman will be on administrative leave, effective immediately."

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"Chief Hugh T. Clements, former chief of police of the Providence Police Department, will serve as interim vice president for Public Safety and chief of police, assuming day-to-day leadership of the department," the statement said.

University President Christina H. Paxson also "outlined three immediate actions" the university is taking to learn from the response to the shooting and "ensure the ongoing security of its campus," according to the statement.

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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