Shooting Kills Two at Brown University 

By Luisa Farole

On Sunday, Dec. 13, a shooting occurred at Brown University, where 40 rounds were shot, killing two and injuring nine others. The victims were identified as 19-year-old Ella Cook of Alabama and 18-year-old Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov of Virginia. The shooting occurred at the university’s Barus and Holley Engineering building, where students were studying for finals.

 On Dec. 18, the main suspect, identified as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, was found dead by apparent suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire. He is also suspected of killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro at his home, two days after the Brown shooting. Along with Neves Valente, police discovered two nine-millimeter firearms and high-capacity magazines matching the ballistics of both crime scenes. 

Police were able to discover him and connect the two crimes, much thanks to an anonymous man, “John,” who suggested police take notice of a rented gray Nissan. “John,” a homeless Brown graduate, is likely to receive a $50,000 reward from the FBI for his information.

Neves Valente attended the same university as Loureiro between 1995 and 2000 in Lisbon. Following that, Neves Valente, who is Portuguese, attended Brown University between Sept. 2000 and April 2001 on an F-1 visa before taking a leave of absence and withdrawing from the University in July 2003. He was granted a green card to the U.S. in 2017 through the diversity immigrant visa program (DV-1), a program that has been paused under Donald Trump’s direction following the shooting. Although both incidents seem to be premeditated, Neves Valente’s motives remain unknown. 

Questions have arisen over how long it took for police to track down the suspect, after previously arresting and releasing a suspect immediately following the Brown shooting. There have been concerns within the school’s community regarding the lack of security camera footage from the shooting. Despite the 1,200 cameras on campus, there were none in the building where the shooting took place, and few around it, since it is located right on the edge of the university’s campus.