BUZZ
December shooting on campus was ‘made possible by more than a decade of deliberate policy decisions that prioritized activists’ radical demands over student safety,’ lawmakers allege
A group of Republican lawmakers harshly rebuked Brown University for adopting “radical,” “anti-police” activists’ demands in a letter Tuesday about the deadly campus shooting in December.
As first reported at The Free Press, the letter to Brown President Christina Paxson demanded “immediate reform” from the Ivy League institution after two students died and nine others were injured in the shooting.
“… these deaths were made possible by more than a decade of deliberate policy decisions that prioritized activists’ radical demands over student safety,” the letter stated.
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, and U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, led the letter. Ten other Republican lawmakers also signed it.
“We are particularly appalled by Brown University’s pattern of eager capitulation in the face of anti-police activism — pouring hundreds of millions into race-centric programming, adopting a ‘phased approach to reliance on policing,’ and issuing a personal apology to activists branding campus security cameras ‘an instrument of oppression’ …” they wrote.
The lawmakers asked the university to provide “full documentation and narrative explanations” of its responses to several safety threats in recent years.
During the December shooting, the lawmakers noted that only “five Brown police officers were on duty at the time … and ‘an incomprehensible 17-minute delay’ activating an alert system allowed” the shooter to “fire off 44 unchallenged shots,” according to the report:
[The] letter also demanded an explanation of how Brown handled documented instances of distrust in campus safety leadership. Last year, the Brown police officers’ union issued a unanimous no-confidence vote in Brown police chief Rodney Chatman and deputy chief John Vinson. Chatman was placed on leave after the shooting and then replaced.
Responding to the letter, a campus spokesperson told The Free Press: “We are disheartened to see persistent misunderstandings about Brown University’s enduring commitment to maintaining a safe and secure campus. We are committed to protecting the safety of students, faculty, staff, and visitors to our campus, and our consistent actions over many years demonstrate that commitment.”
In April, three students who were injured in the shooting sued the university, alleging security failures, The College Fix reported.
“The students allege that Brown’s security failed to heed warnings from custodian Derek Lisi about [gunman Claudio Manuel] Neves Valente ‘casing’ the building in the days and weeks leading up to the shooting that left students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov dead and nine others injured,” the Providence Journal reported.
A custodian said he saw the shooter nearly a dozen times a few weeks before the attack and shared his suspicions with an on-campus security guard, The Fix reported in December.
MORE: Students injured in Brown University shooting sue school, allege security failures
