Brown University Faces Lawsuits from Students Injured in December Shooting

Brown University is facing lawsuits from three students who were injured in a shooting on its campus on December 13. The lawsuits, filed last week in Rhode Island Superior Court, allege that the unnamed plaintiffs suffered injuries because the university failed to maintain reasonable and appropriate security measures.

The attack killed 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, and wounded nine others. Two days later, authorities reported that Neves Valente fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his home in the Boston area.

Neves Valente, who had been a graduate student at Brown studying physics about 20 years ago and had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal in the 1990s, was found dead at a New Hampshire storage facility. Authorities stated he died by suicide on December 16, the same day Loureiro died in a hospital.

The lawsuits claim that Brown's campus security was alerted by a custodian that Neves Valente had been casing the building, but the school did not investigate the reports. Shortly after the shooting, Brown's president placed the campus police on leave amid a review of the school's security policies.

The review has focused on whether the building had security cameras installed and the overall ease of accessing campus buildings. A spokesperson for Brown University, Brian Clark, stated in a statement that they are reviewing the complaints carefully and promptly.