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America woke this week to the sickening news that a gunman walked into Brown University’s Barus & Holley engineering building on December 13, 2025, and opened fire during a study session, killing two students and wounding nine others as they prepared for finals. The slaughter of young people on an Ivy League campus is a gut punch to every parent and patriot who still believes our institutions should protect, not endanger, the next generation.
Local and federal law enforcement immediately launched a massive manhunt that, four days in, still has the shooter at large — a terrifying reality for Providence families and for anyone who thought a gilded university could guarantee safety. Authorities briefly detained a person of interest and then released him after his connection could not be substantiated, underscoring the difficulty of chasing leads in the modern, media-saturated environment.
Police have been pleading with residents to comb through doorbell and cellphone footage after releasing grainy surveillance clips of a masked figure walking near campus two hours before the attack and again afterward, the kind of public-sourced evidence that wins cases when officials don’t have clear camera coverage. The FBI has even stepped in with a $50,000 reward for information leading to arrest and conviction, a useful incentive that shows how seriously this manhunt is being treated — but it also highlights just how much investigators are forced to rely on the public because too many gaps remain.
Veteran law-enforcement voices like former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis have been blunt: this is an “all-hands-on-deck” investigation and when the community helps, it creates tangible leads law enforcement can act on. Davis, who led major manhunts in Boston, told national outlets that the limited video gave detectives gait and build clues that produced a fast tip in the early phase, proof that smart policing and public cooperation work even when the footage is imperfect. Those practical words from a seasoned cop are a sober reminder that experience and method, not virtue-signaling, solve crimes.
But let’s be clear and angry where anger is deserved: Brown boasts one of the largest endowments of any university, yet the shooting happened in an older wing with minimal camera coverage and an unlocked door. That mismatch between wealth and basic campus security is unacceptable — wealthy elites can afford bells and whistles, but they apparently can’t be bothered to secure classrooms where students sit vulnerable during finals. Americans deserve answers about why prevention failed here and why families are left to pick up the pieces.
It would be naïve to expect comfort from polished PR statements; the public needs transparency and accountability. University leaders and local officials must not hide behind platitudes while students shelter in place and parents fear holiday travel; if policies and budgets left surveillance and sensible security as afterthoughts, that calculus has to change now. Law-abiding Americans want campuses that are places of learning, not soft targets, and leadership must act accordingly to restore confidence.
Finally, this tragedy is another reminder of why law and order matters and why we cannot let critics of policing and security hollow out our defenses in the name of ideology. Support the investigators working around the clock, encourage anyone with footage or tips to come forward, and demand that universities stop treating safety like an inconvenience — because every life lost on a privileged campus is a national failure we can and must prevent from repeating.
