The first reports of a shooter opening fire at Brown University came one after another, initially causing chaos, but authorities searched the campus for hours looking for a suspect, call records from that day show.
Two students were killed and nine others were injured in the shooting on December 13. Investigators later identified the gunman as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, whose body was found days later in a storage locker in New Hampshire, following a murder of a professor working for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that authorities believe was a suicide.
Providence Police and Fire Department dispatch logs obtained by NBC News show a flurry of reports starting at 4:06 p.m. and continuing late into the evening as Brown’s precinct remained on lockdown for hours.
According to the logs, at 4:06:45 p.m. a dispatcher reported a call that was classified as a “shooting” within seconds.
At 4:06:59, the same dispatcher reported that a person had been shot. According to the log, over the next 30 seconds, the location of the incident was updated several times. At the same time, another dispatcher was getting a report of shots fired at Baras and Holley, the engineering building where students were studying for finals.
By 4:11:13, the dispatch log included reports that two men had been shot, one in the shoulder and the other in the stomach.
At 4:12:02, a dispatcher filed a report about a suspect who was wearing all black with a mask. Thirteen seconds later, another dispatcher logged similar details.
At 4:13:37, a dispatcher issued a report that a woman had been shot multiple times at Baras Hall. Less than two minutes later, at 4:15:01, a caller told dispatchers that they had heard 10 gunshots while taking shelter on the first floor.
According to the log, six victims were confirmed by 4:15.
At 4:19:19, a caller reported a woman had been shot outside the library and needed medical attention. Two minutes later, another caller reported that it appeared the same woman had been shot in the leg outside the library.
Two dispatchers fielded reports of a possible suspect inside a building 10 seconds apart at 4:22 p.m. – only to be marked “no suspects yet” less than two minutes later. The logs also show police clearing the scene, with about 200 students hiding alone inside one room and others in a bathroom.
Hours after the first reports of shooting, officers were still conducting a secondary search of the school. Logs show responders reporting a “surviving victim” at 6:21:59 p.m.
According to the log, at about 7:30 p.m., buses were dispatched to take the families to the reunification center.
Brown University’s shelter-in-place order will not be lifted until the next morning. Officials later indicated that by then officers had shifted from securing the scene to focusing on identifying and locating the suspect.
A person of interest was taken into custody the next morning, but released later that day when Rhode Island officials said evidence pointed elsewhere.
Five days after the shooting, a judge signed an arrest warrant for Neves Valente in connection with the attack.
Neves Valente was a native of Portugal who graduated at the top of his class and received a physics Ph.D. Moved to the US to attend Brown from August 2000 to spring 2001 on a student visa. Program. According to a Providence Police affidavit, he requested a leave of absence from school in 2001 and ultimately withdrew in 2003.
Authorities are still unclear as to why he targeted the school.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “Why Brown? I think it’s a mystery.” He added: “I don’t think we have any idea why now, or why Brown, why these students, why this class. It’s really unknown to us.”
