Shooting at Brown University: A Timeline of Events
Information flowed in rapid succession after a shooter first opened fire at Brown University, beginning with chaos but gradually stabilizing as authorities spent hours combing the campus for a suspect, call records from that day show.
Dispatch Logs Detail the Initial Response
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 in a storage locker in New Hampshire days later in what officials believe was a suicide after a professor who worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was killed.
Dispatch logs from the Providence police and fire departments obtained by NBC News show a flurry of reports beginning at 4:06 p.m. and continuing late into the evening as Brown’s campus remained on lockdown for hours.
At 4:06:45 p.m., a dispatcher reported a call that was classified as a “shooting” within seconds, according to the logs. At 4:06:59, the same dispatcher reported a person had been shot. Over the next 30 seconds, the incident location was updated multiple times, according to the logs.
By 4:11:13, the dispatch logs included reports that two males had been shot, one in a shoulder and the other in the abdomen. At 4:12:02, a dispatcher recorded a report of a suspect wearing all black with a mask. Thirteen seconds later, another dispatcher logged a similar description.
At 4:13:37, a dispatcher relayed a report that a female had been shot multiple times at Barus Hall. Less than two minutes later, at 4:15:01, a caller told dispatchers they had heard 10 shots on the first floor while sheltering in place. Six victims were confirmed by 4:15, according to the logs.
At 4:19:19, a caller reported a woman outside the library who had been shot and needed medical attention. Two minutes later, another caller reported what appeared to be the same woman shot in the leg outside the library.
Two dispatchers logged reports of a possible suspect inside a building 10 seconds apart at 4:22 p.m.—only to mark “no suspect yet” less than two minutes later.
The logs also show police clearing the scene, finding roughly 200 students inside a single room and others hiding alone in bathrooms. Hours after the first reports of gunfire, authorities were still conducting secondary searches at the school.
Logs show responders reporting a “live victim” at 6:21:59 p.m. At about 7:30, buses were dispatched to take families to a reunification center, according to the logs. Brown University’s shelter-in-place order would not be lifted until the next morning.
By then, authorities had shifted from securing the scene to focusing on identifying and locating the suspect, authorities later indicated. A person of interest was detained the next morning but was released later that day after Rhode Island officials said evidence pointed elsewhere.
