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

[indicolite22]

Automatic translation:

After leaving Brown University (USA), where he was unable to complete his postgraduate studies, Cláudio Valente returned to Portugal and worked in two different periods at the website Sapo.pt.
...
His colleagues describe him as a genius in the field of computer science as well. They recall that he maintained a good working relationship and was introspective.

Cláudio Valente era aluno exemplar em Torres Novas - Portugal - Correio da Manhã

É suspeito da morte de dois estudantes da Universidade Brown, EUA, e também do homicídio do professor do MIT, Nuno Loureiro.

www.cmjornal.pt

 

[indicolite22]

“His mother said this morning that she had always worried that the next time she would hear about him, he would be dead,” Mirita Domingues, a relative, told the Times.
...
Neves Valente stopped communicating with his well-to-do family in Portugal shortly after his stint at Brown, kin told the New York Times.
...
The murderer grew up outside of Lisbon and was a happy-go-lucky kid, Domingues said.

Here’s why Claudio Neves Valente may have targeted Brown U., MIT professor

“I had to break up a fight once” between” the killer and another Brown student, a former pal said.

nypost.com

What happened between him and his parents?

 

[indicolite22]

His former coworker at Sapo paints a different picture of the suspect (translated):

“Cláudio Valente? How?? Wow, he was a sweetheart”
...
She begins by saying that she liked Cláudio very much, with whom she worked "twice, the first time starting in 2001, for about five or six years, and then again later. Because he left and then came back. He was a developer, that is, he wrote the code to program SAPO's services."
...
She often asked developers to explain technical things she didn't understand at all, and that Cláudio always had the patience to do so. “He was absolutely brilliant, with extraordinary intelligence, but very kind and extraordinarily approachable. He was very patient and explained things. He was a very good person. A sweetheart, truly. And everyone who worked with him at Sapo says that, that he was approachable and kind.”
...
Furthermore, she recalls, "he had a very sharp sense of humor."

She adds that nobody knew anything about his private life. He didn't socialize with his coworkers.

“O Cláudio Valente? Como?? Fónix, ele era um doce”

“Alguém sabe explicar? Quem é que esteve com ele pela última vez?”A pergunta correu no grupo de Whatsapp de colegas e ex-colegas do Portal SAPO, esta manhã, ant

www.dn.pt

 

[Charlot123]

“Unusual barking noise” before he started shooting.

Brown University shooter ‘made a barking noise’ as he gunned down students in classroom, witnesses told cops

The suspect in the Brown University mass shooting apparently made bizarre “barking” noises just before he opened fire and killed two Ivy League students, officials said. Some witnesses …

nypost.com

Tics, perhaps?

 

[wibbleflea]

He was a developer, that is, he wrote the code to program SAPO's services.

Exactly the sort of thing I’d have expected.

A few earlier posts compared CV to Kohberger. Both were found to be insufferable and arrogant by some. Both ended up being killers. But intellectually, CV was on a different level. (Read BK’s writing and you’ll know what I mean.)

The true tragedies of this case were the deaths of three people, along with the injured and the traumatised students, family and friends.

There’s another tragedy, too: that a man as gifted as this should end up killing. So few people could do what CV could but his flaws overcame his remarkable strengths and caused so much suffering.

 

[Charlot123]

Regarding homeless people living in university buildings, my own academic career included three universities. In two of them, there was someone living in our department. In the university where I was an undergrad, a tech worker lived in what in effect was their office. In the second university, a fellow grad student lived in the basement. We learned to say things like "so & so isn't here yet" instead of "so & so isn't up yet." It can be good having someone around to keep an eye on things.

Similar to Brown and Providence, in the city where I did my undergrad degree, housing was hard to find and afford. After graduating, I stayed in the area, and at one point between apartments, I was homeless myself. I ended up living in what we called a "laundry room" in a small cooperative dorm in which people took turns cooking. (Maybe it was a former laundry room -- it had a bed & maybe a sink, but no washing machines.) I stayed there until the administrators in charge of the building found out I was there and told me I had to move on.

My guess is that the janitor who also saw CV hanging around the building at Brown knew damn well that John was living there and didn't care. I know it doesn't make Brown look good that a homeless alum was living in the basement of the engineering building, but such a situation is not unusual.

JMO

It absolutely makes Brown look good.

Several years before Covid, housing prices in Washington state became asinine. The building where I worked in at that time was in a nice area, but it was all commercial. I remember people warning to be careful and lock the doors as there were homeless seen around, whatnot.

Well, I met one of these homeless. A man over fifty, intelligent and articulate, dressed in a coat that had seen better days but used to be nice at one point. He was lying inside the building, on the logs surrounding an artificial flower bed. He apologized for being there. I said he could definitely stay and brought out a pillow and a blanket and persuaded him to sleep as I was working late. When I was leaving in a few hours, he was gone, all the stuff I gave him accurately folded. I didn’t know where to put him professionally, but IMHO he could be a tester, an engineer or a teacher who lost a job. Anyone can run into bad times.

If the Gubbio project in California offers space inside St. Boniface church for the homeless to sleep, and it is considered a good deed, why should we judge anyone who allowed a known Brown alumnus who ran into hard times to sleep inside? Providence gets cold in the winter, it is a human thing to do so, IMHO. Sort of “the Brown community treated him well, and he paid back to the community”.

JMO.

 

[sunspun]

It absolutely makes Brown look good.

Several years before Covid, housing prices in Washington state became asinine. The building where I worked in at that time was in a nice area, but it was all commercial. I remember people warning to be careful and lock the doors as there were homeless seen around, whatnot.

Well, I met one of these homeless. A man over fifty, intelligent and articulate, dressed in a coat that had seen better days but used to be nice at one point. He was lying inside the building, on the logs surrounding an artificial flower bed. He apologized for being there. I said he could definitely stay and brought out a pillow and a blanket and persuaded him to sleep as I was working late. When I was leaving in a few hours, he was gone, all the stuff I gave him accurately folded. I didn’t know where to put him professionally, but IMHO he could be a tester, an engineer or a teacher who lost a job. Anyone can run into bad times.

If the Gubbio project in California offers space inside St. Boniface church for the homeless to sleep, and it is considered a good deed, why should we judge anyone who allowed a known Brown alumnus who ran into hard times to sleep inside? Providence gets cold in the winter, it is a human thing to do so, IMHO. Sort of “the Brown community treated him well, and he paid back to the community”.

JMO.

Except that I was under the impression that the university didn't know he was staying in the basement, and in fact, that if they had known, they would have put a stop to it. Which would negate any attribution of altruism on their part.

Did I understand that wrong? Was this living arrangement known and approved of by someone in authority at the University?

I wouldn't have expected that to be something they'd ever allow.

How did we happen to know about it anyway? Did John himself tell the media? That seems like an odd thing for him to do, if so. Wonder how long he's been staying there ...

 

[Charlot123]

Except that I was under the impression that the university didn't know he was staying in the basement, and in fact, that if they had known, they would have put a stop to it. Which would negate any attribution of altruism on their part.

Did I understand that wrong? Was this living arrangement known and approved of by someone in authority at the University?

I wouldn't have expected that to be something they'd ever allow.

How did we happen to know about it anyway? Did John himself tell the media? That seems like an odd thing for him to do, if so. Wonder how long he's been staying there ...

Maybe I didn’t understand it correctly, one poster said that John living in the basement makes Brown look bad. I thought they were blaming Brown. I don’t know anything about the situation.

The way I see it: many years ago, there was a huge snowstorm in Boston and six homeless people were turned away from the emergency rooms and died of hypothermia. The Boston Globe made a scathing review of that situation. Knowing the winter forecast, I just can’t imagine throwing an alumnus who is probably trying to find a job out into the street. This is what would make Brown look bad.

Anyway, hope Reddit posts G-F-M or a better trusted way. I know there are ways for people to donate for professional edits of photos there. This guy has raised Reddit’s reputation. too.

 

[Charlot123]

His former coworker at Sapo paints a different picture of the suspect (translated):

“Cláudio Valente? How?? Wow, he was a sweetheart”
...
She begins by saying that she liked Cláudio very much, with whom she worked "twice, the first time starting in 2001, for about five or six years, and then again later. Because he left and then came back. He was a developer, that is, he wrote the code to program SAPO's services."
...
She often asked developers to explain technical things she didn't understand at all, and that Cláudio always had the patience to do so. “He was absolutely brilliant, with extraordinary intelligence, but very kind and extraordinarily approachable. He was very patient and explained things. He was a very good person. A sweetheart, truly. And everyone who worked with him at Sapo says that, that he was approachable and kind.”
...
Furthermore, she recalls, "he had a very sharp sense of humor."

She adds that nobody knew anything about his private life. He didn't socialize with his coworkers.

“O Cláudio Valente? Como?? Fónix, ele era um doce”

“Alguém sabe explicar? Quem é que esteve com ele pela última vez?”A pergunta correu no grupo de Whatsapp de colegas e ex-colegas do Portal SAPO, esta manhã, ant

www.dn.pt

I don’t believe that “brilliance” (or getting grades better that Nuno) means that much, if anything. You all know Thomas Edison’s quote, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”, and maybe CV lacked in work ethics.

It fits that CV was the only child. When he went to the university, he probably cut off tight umbilical cord instead of stretching it.

Also, I think that in 2001, he made the right decision to switch over to IT.

Academic career means, not much money, competition, a lot of hard work and dependence on grants. Nuno Loureiro was lucky, with his work, he got MIT professorship, fame and publications. But it is always a risk, and financially, Claudio’s decision in 2001 could have looked sounder. I don’t know what was happening to CV in 2010es, but the real problem could have started with winning that green card lottery. The timing was wrong. The green card kept him in the US for over 6 months of a year, and there were no remote works yet in 2017. So he likely had to quit his job in Portugal. I assume that he planned to get into IT sector in the US, but he was in his 40-es, from another country, and not a team player. But the main issue, the downturn in technical sector, had essentially started with COVID, everywhere. I’d guess that he ended up in the same boat with some programmers but in a new country. And, no connections, no friends, no social network.

So it could have been all to his story. He could have made some nest egg, but “always on the phone”, might indicate some form of ludomania or other compulsive behavior draining out one’s money.

He lived here for several years and did not commit homicidal acts. So, either inability to find a good job and hopelessness or perhaps, a new illness or all of it. And then it goes back to “where did it go wrong?” And he starts finding blame with others.