Brown University has placed its police chief on administrative leave as part of a comprehensive safety review following a deadly campus shooting that killed two students and injured nine others on December 13th. University President Christina Paxson announced the immediate leave for Chief Rodney Chatman on Monday, characterizing the move as standard procedure during institutional reviews of critical incidents.
The shooting incident, which occurred in a building housing engineering and physics programs, has triggered multiple investigations into campus security protocols and law enforcement response times. Authorities confirmed the suspect, 48-year-old Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente, fired at least 44 rounds before fleeing the scene. Valente, a former Brown student, was found deceased in a New Hampshire storage facility six days after the attack.
In her statement, President Paxson acknowledged the campus community was experiencing significant ‘anxiety, fear and stress’ while simultaneously praising the responding officers’ ‘bravery, dedication and commitment.’ The university’s highest governing body will conduct parallel reviews of both the shooting response and existing safety policies.
The tragedy has drawn national attention, with the U.S. Department of Education initiating its own review of Brown’s security measures. The incident took a more complex turn when investigators revealed possible connections between Valente and the fatal shooting of an MIT professor two days after the Brown attack. Motives for both shootings remain undisclosed.
Victims were identified as Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old Uzbek-American freshman. The university community continues to grapple with the aftermath while awaiting the findings of multiple ongoing investigations.