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Brown University students and the Providence community were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief, as the suspected gunman that killed two and injured nine others on campus was found dead in a storage unit on Thursday, Dec. 18.
Investigators identified the gunman as Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, according to the Providence Police Department.
“It felt like a weight lifted off our chest,” said Jack DiPrimio, a graduate student and friend of one of the victims. “But then, it dawned on us that it really wasn’t that satisfying.”
Brown University President Christina Paxson said in a press conference Neves-Valente was a graduate student at the university from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. He then took a leave of absence and ultimately withdrew from the university in 2003.
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DiPrimio said that while he and others were relieved the shooter was dead, he was also enraged.
“We wanted to see him alive, so that we could bring him to justice, and so that he could look our community in the [eyes], could look the family in the eyes and grapple with what he did,” said DiPrimio.
Neves-Valente was also identified as the suspected gunman who killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, in his Brookline home on Tuesday, Dec. 16. Loureiro was a world-renowned physicist, professor of nuclear science and engineering and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Still, Brown University students remained shaken in the days after the shooting.
“What I thought would happen was that I would feel relief and that I would feel safe to go out on the streets again. But, instead I felt infuriated,” said Alp Gures, a junior at Brown University. “I didn’t know who to blame … We then realized that it was a former Ph.D. student … Just the thought of [it] made me really angry.”
Gures said he was in his apartment during the shooting, only a block away from Barus and Holley, the building where the shooting occurred. He remembers hearing a multitude of sirens pass his building and later, received a call from his roommate who had already left campus for winter break.
His roommate notified him of the shooting and he said he didn’t receive an official alert until later.
The first emergency alert was sent to students at 4:22 p.m. on Saturday, 17 minutes after the first 911 call was received, according to Brown University’s website.
“I’m so confused,” said Gures. “I thought the [emergency notification system] was trustworthy. Just the fact that it took so long to respond to the emergency and told us to shelter in place … is really worrying.”
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Meanwhile, DiPrimio was walking back to his apartment during a study session, down the street from the Barus and Holley building, when he received the active shooter alert.
He said when he began reading SideChat messages, an anonymous posting platform for Brown students, that’s when the panic set in.
He left his belongings and keys to his apartment in the room he was studying in, but found a building door that was left open, ran into the basement and hid in a bathroom stall.
The day after the shooting, Gures said he had never seen the campus so quiet. Officials had a person of interest in custody at the time, but they were later released.
“I felt the campus had never felt more dead and silent even though people were still on campus,” said Gures. “I had just never heard College Hill that quiet … It was eerie to see Providence like that.”
DiPrimio found out on Sunday that his friend, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, was fatally shot and died in the hospital. Umurzokov was a freshman and aspiring neurosurgeon. Ella Cook, a sophomore at Brown University and vice president of Brown’s College Republicans, was ID’d as the second victim.
“I was so angry because I come from a public policy background, so there was like emotional compartmentalization where I was intellectualizing the fact that this could probably have been preventable in that at the same time I was grieving a friend,” said DiPrimio.
“I started to see the memories of both [Cook] and [Umurzokov] [and] started to see what they meant to people, become twisted and used for political gain,” reiterated DiPrimio.
He also shared he felt like he was in a “long nightmare.”
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In the wake of the deaths, DiPrimio made a trip to New York City where he left flowers and a note for Cook and Umurzokov at the base of the “Summer Maiden” statue at Rockefeller Center. He also posted a video on Instagram dedicated to Umurzokov.
“I want the public to know the person I knew and the person I wish I was able to talk to again,” said DiPrimio through tears in the video. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get to tell you that I loved you and that you impressed me and gave me hope for the future.”
DiPrimio recounted meeting Umurzokov after a professor embarrassed him at an event earlier in the semester. At the reception, Umurzokov approached DiPrimio to say he liked his question. After finding out he was only a freshman, DiPrimio was instantly impressed with his maturity.
The two exchanged Instagram accounts and hit it off. DiPrimio said he felt protective over him. They were both new at Brown and would often discuss pop-culture, movies and news.
“The haunting thing is that in October, we had talked about how crazy gun violence was in America,” recalled DiPrimio. “I know he would be so livid about what happened at Brown, and he would want to see a change come from this.”
He also mentioned Umurzokov had planned to go on a date Saturday night, the day of the shooting.
Gures expressed that he felt the shooting at Brown, in time, would become, “just any other shooting,” and that he never thought something like this would happen.
“It really becomes our job to make sure we keep reminding people that this has happened in a community as close as ours and to make sure that the victims, both the two that have died and the many injured, we just keep reminding [people] of them, just to make sure this doesn’t become a statistic,” said Gures.
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For DiPrimio, it’s imperative that the memory of the Cook and Umurzokov live on.
“Remember [Cook] and [Umurzokov] not as victims, but as people,” concluded DiPrimio.
“It’s so harrowing to me every single time this happens,” said Gures. “You really get to think this won’t happen to my campus, until it does.”
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