\n<\/p>\n
Two students were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University on Saturday. The university\u2019s president Christina H. Paxson described the incident as \u201ca tragedy that no university community is ever ready for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe past 24 hours really have been unimaginable,\u201d she said in a letter to the Ivy League university\u2019s greater community Sunday morning, adding that most of the injured students remain hospitalized in stable condition.<\/p>\n
The shooting began just after 4 p.m. at the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building. The Providence, Rhode Island, campus was locked down until Sunday morning when local law enforcement officials ended the order, sharing that they had identified and detained a male in his 20s as a person of interest.<\/p>\n
Officials later said the person of interest was a 24-year-old originally from Wisconsin, but haven\u2019t released further information on the shooter or the hospitalized students. State police and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation remain on campus.<\/p>\n
Brown University President Christina Paxson leaving a press conference Sunday.<\/p>\n
Jessica Rinaldi\/The Boston Globe\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
According to The Brown Daily Herald<\/em>, the student newspaper, many of the students affected were in a review session for a Principles of Economics exam. One freshman, Spencer Yang, told The Herald<\/em> that he was shot in the leg but others near him were \u201cseriously injured.\u201d He said he tried to help them and keep them conscious.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we always prepare for major crises, we also pray such a day never comes,\u201d Paxson said in her letter. \u201cWe know there is a long road ahead as students and families deal with the after effects of the events of the past day and the emergency that is still unfolding.\u201d<\/p>\n Joseph Oduro, a senior from New Jersey and teaching assistant for the economics class, told The Boston Globe<\/em> <\/em>that the review session had just wrapped up when the shooter entered carrying \u201cthe longest gun I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.\u201d Oduro crouched behind the podium at the front of the auditorium and huddled with a first-year student who had been shot twice in the leg. He stayed with her until she reached the hospital, The Globe <\/em>reported.<\/p>\n Oduro didn\u2019t want to describe what he saw as first responders evacuated the classroom, but said it hurt to see his students \u201call in a state of panic and desperate pain.\u201d<\/p>\n University Provost Francis J. Doyle III announced Sunday morning, that \u201cout of profound concern for all students, faculty and staff,\u201d all undergraduate, graduate and medical classes, exams and final projects for the semester would not take place as scheduled. Students are free to leave campus if they are able, but if not, access to on-campus services will remain available, Doyle said. More guidance about the status of unfinished courses will be released in the days ahead, he added.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s events sparked anger and frustration among gun control advocates and affected students as the number of mass school shootings on record continues to climb. One student, Zoe Weissman, a college sophomore, survived the Brown shooting Saturday nearly eight years after she had been affected by a similar event in her hometown\u2014Parkland, Florida.<\/p>\n Weissman, now 20, was a student at Parkland Middle School when 17 people were killed and 18 injured at the nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.<\/p>\n \u201cMentally, I feel like I\u2019m 12 again. This just feels exactly how I felt in 2018. But honestly, I\u2019m really angry,\u201d Weissman said in an interview with MS NOW, formerly MSNBC. \u201cThis isn\u2019t a new phenomenon, and we\u2019re going to get to a point where there\u2019s [more] people like myself who survived two of these.\u201d<\/p>\n Another Brown student, Mia Tretta, was shot in a 2019 school shooting in Santa Clarita that left two people dead, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople always think, well, it\u2019ll never be me,\u201d Tretta told the\u00a0Times<\/em>. \u201cAnd until I was shot in my school, I also thought the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n President Donald Trump addressed the shooting during a holiday reception at the White House Sunday, but did not speak directly to public concerns about gun control or the number of incidents on college or K-12 campuses.<\/p>\n \u201cThings can happen,\u201d he said. \u201cSo to the nine injured, get well fast and the families of those two who are no longer with us, I pay my deepest regards and respects.\u201d<\/p>\n The campus shooting also gained attention from fans of the reality TV show Survivor<\/em>. Season 48 runner-up, Eva Erickson, is a Brown doctoral candidate, and she shared on social media how she had left the engineering building minutes before the shooting began.<\/p>\n \u201cI am so, so extremely lucky that I was very unproductive at work today,\u201d she said in a video eight hours after the lockdown began. \u201cI was in my office in Barus and Holley in that area until 4 p.m. and I was like, man I\u2019m just not getting nothing done on my code and randomly decided I would go to the gym \u2026 I left and about 20 minutes later, we get the warning.\u201d<\/p>\n Erickson added that while she appreciated all the thoughts and prayers she had received, it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need more than thoughts and prayers,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is ridiculous that as college students in America we have to worry about someone shooting up our classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n