Brown Shooting Victim From VA Dreamed Of Being Doctor, Always Had A Helping Hand

BRANDERMILL, VA — Friends and family remembered Virginian Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, who was killed Saturday by a mass shooter at Brown University, as smart and ambitious, but also as someone who consistently went out of his way to support his friends, according to reports.

Umurzokov was not enrolled in the economics class that was holding a final review session Saturday afternoon in a campus engineering building, NBC News reported, where a gunman — still on the loose Monday — opened fire to kill two and wound nine more. The 18-year-old freshman from Midlothian was there helping a friend.

Also killed was 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook of Alabama.

“He was very curious and open. He loved talking to new people. He was genuinely interested in other people and their lived experiences, and he was very passionate," Umurzokov’s friend and fellow Brown student, Jack Diprimio, told NBC News.

"He would speak highly of his friends and his family, and you could tell he was just happy to be at Brown and trying to make as much of it as possible.”

Umurzokov aspired to be a neurosurgeon after receiving an operation as a child and experiencing fluid build-up in his brain, which impaired his ability to walk, NBC News reported. With a double-major in biochemistry and neuroscience, he hoped to go to medical school.

“He had so many hardships in his life, and he got into this amazing school and tried so hard to follow through with the promise he made when (he) was 7 years old,” his sister, Samira Umurzokova, told The Associated Press by phone Monday.

Growing up, Umurzokov would memorize the names of dinosaurs, countries and capitals, according to NBC News. He was a straight-A student who took every possible Advanced Placement class and received a scholarship to Brown, The Washington Post reported.

“He didn’t get any outside tutoring or anything. He did everything himself,” his sister, Rukhsora Umurzokova, told the Post. “And then he was so excited to go to Brown this fall. He was saying, like, ‘This is the best year of my life. I’m so happy here.’ He had just visited us at Thanksgiving.”

His parents were traveling Saturday for an Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, according to the Post, which reported that upon arriving and learning Umurzokov was dead, they returned to the U.S. with plans to go straight from the airport to Rhode Island.

Umurzokov had been a straight-A student at Midlothian High School who participated in Model United Nations, Quiz Bowl and debate, The Post reported. As a child he underwent brain surgery and took years to recovery. That formed his ambition to become a brain surgeon, his sister said.

Umurzokov took it upon himself to help students who had just immigrated to the United States and weren’t fully acclimated to the culture and language, said Samira Umurzokova, whose family came to the country from Uzbekistan when she, her brother and sister were very young.

“It’s just crazy unfair that all of that was taken from him in a second because of someone,” Umurzokova said.

She said he would be using his phone at the dinner table and when his parents told him to put it away, he would say, ”‘No, I’m helping my friend with calculus homework.’”

When he wasn’t busy with schoolwork, he would play video games with friends and hang out at a book store with family. He had plans to take his sisters to see the movie “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which comes out Friday.

“He was a thoughtful person,” Umurzokova said. “He always tried to include everyone in everything. and just always thought of other people before he thought of himself.”

His family set up a GoFundMe in his memory.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.