Active shooter on Brown campus

[Anonymous]

I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just read a report that he might have gone into the wrong room. instead of a review session for econ. he may have intended to shoot up a similar room having a physics final.

Also, read that the guy had been in the storage room since an hour after killing the professor from MIT--in other words, he had been dead a while.

Would be interesting to know what he has been doing since 2017 when he received the green card.

I teach at a university. When you need a classroom for a review session or other event at a time that you don't normally teach, you make the request through a centralized system which assigns you an empty room at the time you requested. So this was just a horribly unlucky thing for this econ class to be in the engineering building for their review session. It obviously would have been equally tragic for a classroom of engineering or physics students to have been the victims.

As someone in academia this feels like a familiar story with the worst possible outcome. There are always people at the fringes of academia who couldn't make it through a program, or made it through but couldn't get a good job, due to mental illness. They either don't want to or can't do anything else because of their difficulty with executive functioning and reading social cues/learning professional conduct. They see being an academic is a core part of their identity, and are very smart, but can't manage the non-academic skills required to be successful. Because academia is such an exploitative system, some of these people who manage to get a Master's degree will work for years as adjuncts or visiting professors because they are desperate and therefore willing to work for the low pay and lack of job security. It's not hard to see how someone with a tendency to externalize when they feel shame will blame others and want to exact revenge. Just a horrible story all around.

I also worked in higher ed and this sounds right. According to information from the case affidavit as reported by The Boston Globe, at one point the shooter was a promising physics student. "At his high school, he was reportedly an accomplished physics student. As a 17-year-old student, he competed in a national physics competition, where he was selected to be one of five Portuguese students to attend an international competition in Australia the following year." In 2000, he came to the US on a student visa pursue a PhD in physics at Brown--but dropped out at the end of the academic year.

Interestingly, when he later applied for a diversity lottery visa in 2017, he "listed Brown University as his educational institution, and the Barus and Holley building, where the shooting took place, as the address for the institution. Under degree or diploma, he wrote 'None-Dropout,'” according to the affidavit. Why would someone applying for permanent residency in the US bother to mention a university that he studied at--but never graduated from--many years before applying for permanent residency? And why would he use the word "dropout" (which is somewhat stigmatizing) under degree/diploma rather than "n/a" or just "none" alone? It sounds to me like he never got over the humiliation of not living up to his promise as a physics student. I think we will find that mental health problems played an important role here--as is usually the case in these shootings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

I am sure they will scream about it and it probably will change at Brown, but not everywhere else that has the same or even fewer security measures.

It takes a shooting for a school to change. But no amount of shootings will make our laws change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

I am sure they will scream about it and it probably will change at Brown, but not everywhere else that has the same or even fewer security measures.

It takes a shooting for a school to change. But no amount of shootings will make our laws change.

there is only one security measure that could really make a difference: getting guns out of people's hands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

I am sure they will scream about it and it probably will change at Brown, but not everywhere else that has the same or even fewer security measures.

It takes a shooting for a school to change. But no amount of shootings will make our laws change.

there is only one security measure that could really make a difference: getting guns out of people's hands.

[phone]

No way to fix this situation, say Americans who live in the only country where these incidents happen all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The guy who said early on he was probably a former Brown science or engineering student was right!!!

Sounds like the Econ class was an unfortunate mistaken target.

I am glad he killed himself. It is unfortunate he succeeded in killing his former classmate in Boston (Brookline)!

They were econ students but their session was in a science building where the killer had studied decades ago. Wrong place, wrong time.

It seems he put some effort into planning the crime so shy didn't he confirm he had the " right" class and why jarm students anyway they were not even born when he attended Brown.

Because irrational people don’t make rational decisions! This guy was definitely off and should’ve never had access to guns, but hey it’s America.

And what objective data, prior to this, was there that should have prevent him getting a firearm? Someone being “off” isn’t a reason. Him being let go from his position isn’t a reason either. He doesn’t seem to have been committed to a mental institution. Should we say anyone with depression, anxiety, adhd, autism spectrum, or socially awkward cannot own a firearm?

Yes, yes, it should be much harder for people to get firearms. How much more proof do you need?

And how do you prove someone is off or awkward and shouldn’t own a firearm? There are many weirdo people with no documented diagnosis

You don't get what we are saying. My right for my kids not to get shot Trump's your right to own a gun in every country in the world but the US. This isn't about socially awkward people not getting guns. MOST PEOPLE should not get guns.

You are assuming he obtained the gun legally. We can and should change gun laws but legal means is not the only way to obtain a gun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The guy who said early on he was probably a former Brown science or engineering student was right!!!

Sounds like the Econ class was an unfortunate mistaken target.

I am glad he killed himself. It is unfortunate he succeeded in killing his former classmate in Boston (Brookline)!

They were econ students but their session was in a science building where the killer had studied decades ago. Wrong place, wrong time.

It seems he put some effort into planning the crime so shy didn't he confirm he had the " right" class and why jarm students anyway they were not even born when he attended Brown.

Because irrational people don’t make rational decisions! This guy was definitely off and should’ve never had access to guns, but hey it’s America.

And what objective data, prior to this, was there that should have prevent him getting a firearm? Someone being “off” isn’t a reason. Him being let go from his position isn’t a reason either. He doesn’t seem to have been committed to a mental institution. Should we say anyone with depression, anxiety, adhd, autism spectrum, or socially awkward cannot own a firearm?

Yes, yes, it should be much harder for people to get firearms. How much more proof do you need?

And how do you prove someone is off or awkward and shouldn’t own a firearm? There are many weirdo people with no documented diagnosis

You don't get what we are saying. My right for my kids not to get shot Trump's your right to own a gun in every country in the world but the US. This isn't about socially awkward people not getting guns. MOST PEOPLE should not get guns.

You are assuming he obtained the gun legally. We can and should change gun laws but legal means is not the only way to obtain a gun.

NP. plus, it appears he may have crossed a state line, with the gun !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And why do we make it so easy for a person here on a green card to get guns? Why do we still have so many loopholes? Why aren't we making it mandatory to track and validate every gun transfer?

Good point. The VA Tech shooter was also still on a green card and managed to legally purchase two pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammo. The most deadly campus murder spree in history was committed with handguns.

[Anonymous]

Just read the statement from the Brown president.
Sadly, there are several students and professors who have been doxxed and threatened because people online, including here on DCUM, posted false accusations.
Please think twice and do not do contribute to the threats to these innocent lives. I flagged several of the earlier posts to Jeff, who promptly removed them. At least one poster was naive enough to believe that students falsely accused would be free of any threats once the actual perpetrator was found, but clearly this did not turn out to be the case.

[Anonymous]

I’ll wager that the motive was revenge for stealing an idea of his.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

I am sure they will scream about it and it probably will change at Brown, but not everywhere else that has the same or even fewer security measures.

It takes a shooting for a school to change. But no amount of shootings will make our laws change.

there is only one security measure that could really make a difference: getting guns out of people's hands.

[phone]

No way to fix this situation, say Americans who live in the only country where these incidents happen all the time.

+1 they can install new cameras but it won’t make a difference. Sure we might catch the shooter quicker in the next mass shooting, which will happen soon only in this country on the planet earth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

I agree, but several posters here seem fine with it at the university level as if having numerous buildings makes a lack of safety measures ok. UGA increased the number of cameras after Laken Riley's murder.

[Anonymous]

Cameras aren't the solution to prevent shootings, even if the help catch the shooter afterwards, dead people won't benefit. Gun control is the solution we need.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cameras aren't the solution to prevent shootings, even if the help catch the shooter afterwards, dead people won't benefit. Gun control is the solution we need.

People are more aware when there are cameras. Public school employees are much more careful of what they're doing when they know they are being filmed and those films can be reviewed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope the alumni and parents of students at Brown scream about the lack of security and cameras on campus.

For a university with a considerable endowment, this is unacceptable.

+1 absurdly inadequate