RI - Mass Shooting at Brown University - Providence 13 Dec 2025

[marloweclover]

Thoughts about the running: we don't know if the other person in the video was the catalyst for the running. It could have been something he saw further up the street, out of the camera view. A car he recognized, a police vehicle, a group of people standing and talking that would increase his chances of being noticed if he passed by, even someone in a security type uniform. JMO.

 

[LAhiker]

The feeling I get from him is middle aged facilities maintenance employee, radicalised by the far right, who felt he had a bone to pick with these ‘woke’ students. I hope Brown is exploring their HR files for staff who might be at risk of doing something like this. MOO

While that's certainly possible, it's not clear why such a person would loiter around the neighborhood apparently waiting for a specific class/review session. There may have been something specific about that review session, instructor, or classroom that he targeted.

(At first I thought it was something about the engineering building -- for instance, if he was someone who was rejected by a graduate program housed in that building and wanted to shoot people up there. But if there were other review sessions or exams in the building earlier, as seems likely, it's not clear why he loitered around town instead of going into the building earlier.)

JMO

 

[MassGuy]

The more I think about this, the more I think this guy didn't have much of a plan at all.

There is no practical reason to loiter around that area for hours if you have a specific target in mind. There's no intelligence to be gleaned from walking around side streets, when you plan to enter a specific classroom in a specific building, at a specific time.

I think he was unstable, conflicted, and playing things by ear.

 

[phi1ip]

That part of the video is very strange to me as well. I can't really think of what would cause two people to run at that same part of the street. I was thinking there could be a bus stop further down the street, but I don't see anything like that on Google Maps.

Definitely harping on this myself. Part of me does wonder if it really just is a strange crazy coincidence that the other person starting running after the POI did.

There IS a school shuttle system at Brown, and based on how it’s described on the website, there is a stop near the school of engineering. In fact, the bus goes right up the street (Brook) perpendicular to George street (where the footage of the two running incidents is taken), and the next stop isn’t too far away (Brook and Waterman). Maybe the second runner saw the bus going up the street, realized he could probably make the bus but he’d have to book it, and ran??

 

[maamager]

sorry if this has been mentioned repeatedly, but this happening on Saturday is strange to me as far as targeting a school, but i’m sure the campus was packed for finals. could this person not get off work any other day? or has weekday obligation? he clearly had an escape plan. odd.
just wondering moo i think he had a vehicle

eta: imo i think he is an out of towner. probably used a rental, parked somewhere close and dropped a bag off. he’s locking his hands and strolling around in that one clip because i think he’s near his car, trying to act as if it isn’t his. by trying to look chill, this person tells on themselves — TOTALLY speculating though

 

[Charlot123]

Public transit in Rhode Island is mainly buses, although there's been a train that goes to Boston. Access is mainly at ground level. To the best of my recollection, there are no public transit facilities with elevators, except at the airport. If he's from Rhode Island, or adjacent areas in Connecticut or Massachusetts, he probably has a car. It's hard to live without one.

All RI, but especially Brown area, is quite compact. He might know it well (he seems to), but by the same token, he would be recognized if he were a local living around Brown U. People cluster in the same places.

Yet he seems to know the cameras. I remember the complaints of students/postdocs attending Brown over a decade ago, when there were fewer cameras around.

They complained that the area around Brown was frequently robbed, and very quietly so. It seems that all the thieves needed to know was the schedule. Entering when everyone is out, students don’t keep huge locks anyhow, and stealing money or jewelry or small electronics would be such a nonchalant routine... I don’t know if it was local mafia, amateurs or something in between. They never got in trouble and there was no violence associated with robbery. Usually thieves and mass shooters don’t merge, but thieves in the U-districts would have all the necessary knowledge. Just an idea.

Either a person familiar with the area from thieving, or regular delivery driver, or maybe someone working in one of facilities (e.g. geriatric) around Brown, too. No one notices the people working there.

The shooter is rather imperceptible (my guess about his ethnicity is as random as anyone’s, but just my guess why people have trouble figuring it out: it is one of the few groups with variable phenotypes; highly ethnically diverse). I would say that he looks bundled up so proportions from the back, shape of shoulders, height might be more telling.

And I think he is pretty sick, but I doubt he killed himself. I wonder if he merely went home, tbh.

 

[Sillybilly]

The more I think about this, the more I think this guy didn't have much of a plan at all.

There is no practical reason to loiter around that area for hours if you have a specific target in mind. There's no intelligence to be gleaned from walking around side streets, when you plan to enter a specific classroom in a specific building, at a specific time.

I think he was unstable, conflicted, and playing things by ear.

That's a vibe I get Mass.
Not seeing any rocket science happening there. Seems too jittery for any real professionalism, almost like he was considering chickening out and having to psyche up for it.

 

[iamshadow21]

That's a vibe I get Mass.
Not seeing any rocket science happening there. Seems too jittery for any real professionalism, almost like he was considering chickening out and having to psyche up for it.

We're conditioned by fiction to think that anyone who gets away clean is some kind of Moriarty.

When in fact, it's just luck, most of the time. They didn't plan that well, didn't have a sky high IQ, they picked the street with bad cameras by chance, and they actually assumed that they'd be caught quickly.

MOO