Students and staff at Brown University are talking about the shooting on December 13th. The event sadly caused the death of two people and injured nine others.
Joseph Oduro, a 21-year-old student who helps teach classes, was leading an economics study session with about 60 students when the shooting occurred.
Oduro told The New York Times that a person wearing a mask and holding a rifle came into his classroom and started shooting. This happened just as he was thanking the students and they were about to leave. He said they suddenly heard gunshots and people screaming. The masked person then entered the room and shouted something hard to understand.
Oduro hid behind a desk with about 20 students. One of them was shot in the leg. Other students ran out of the room. He noted that the students in the middle of the classroom were the most affected.
Another student told NBC News that he was working in a lab when he got a message about the shooting. He and three other students turned off the lights, closed the doors, and hid under their desks for about two hours. After getting a message to leave the building, they let the police search them and the lab before leaving.
The student said he was hoping no one would get hurt or killed. He felt safe in the lab because the doors were strong, and they had turned off the lights.
Jack DiPrimio, a graduate student, was working in a lobby when the shooting happened. He said he didn’t react right away because he had been through many lockdowns before. He then realized how serious it was and ran to his apartment building. When he didn’t have his keys, he hid in a basement bathroom in a dorm for about four to five hours before going to the Department of Public Safety.
DiPrimio said that many students had just finished their final exams and were now feeling grief and sadness. He called it a horrible way to end the semester.
Brown University announced the active shooter situation near Barus & Holley around 4 p.m. on December 13th. They told everyone to lock doors, silence phones, and stay hidden.
Police confirmed that a “person of interest” is now in custody, and the shelter-in-place order for the college has been lifted.
Zoe Weissman, a college student, shared her experience of surviving the shooting at Brown University, which came years after she was a student during the mass shooting at Parkland High School in Florida in 2018.
Weissman told MS NOW that she is angry and shocked that this is happening to her again.
