Background
Brown University is a private Ivy League research university located in Providence, Rhode Island, renowned for its Open Curriculum and surprisingly low acceptance rate. It remains one of the oldest institutions of higher education in all of the United States, founded in 1764, as well as the first in the nation to accept students from all religious affiliations.
Attack
On December 13, 2025, a spree shooting began at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, shortly after 4 p.m. during the second day of finals week for the fall semester. The attacker Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente conducted the shooting at Brown University’s School of Engineering Barus and Holley Building, which also houses the university’s physics department.
A majority of the shooting took place inside the first-floor of the building in Room 166, where a 21-year-old teaching assistant was leading an optional review session for a final exam in economics. The building was unlocked, however it is unknown how Valente officially entered the building, but authorities believe he moved through a part of the building that had limited surveillance cameras and exited on the Hope Street side.
In an interview the teaching assistant stated that the masked gunman entered the classroom just as the class was ending and fired 40 rounds.
At roughly 4:22 p.m, the university’s Public Safety and Emergency Management issued the first alert message to the campus community about, “an active shooter near Barus & Holley Engineering.”
At 4:50 p.m., the university sent an alert message stating that a suspect was in custody, 20 minutes later a correction was sent. Then at 5:27 p.m., the university sent an alert message about reported gunfire near Governor Street, but later retracted the message at 6:10 p.m.
Victims
Two people were killed, and nine were wounded during the sudden shooting spree at Brown University, all of which were Brown students.
The two who passed were Ella Cook, vice president of Brown’s College Republicans, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek American and recent High School graduate.
All nine of the wounded students were transported to the university-affiliated Rhode Island Hospital for gun-related injuries. One of the victims had a shrapnel injury and was discharged after a few hours. Two more were later discharged on December 16 and 17. The other six remained within the hospital as of December 18 but were all in stable conditions.
Investigation
Over 400 police officers responded to the incident, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The Rhode Island governor Dan McKee also ordered the Rhode Island State Police to support the policing efforts instilling in the days following.
In the hours following the shooting, authorities found shell casings at the scene of the crime, leading them to believe the shooter used a handgun. Shortly after a 10 p.m. press conference, the Providence Police Department released security footage of the suspect which remains the clearest picture of the perpetrator. Authorities later asked nearby residents for any relevant video footage from smart doorbells.
Overnight, it snowed, which hampered the collection of physical evidence from the crime scene, including fingerprints.
The morning after the shooting, the FBI raided a hotel in Rhode Island and detained a man. The FBI also raided a home in another state, where it was confirmed that the FBI was there investigating the shooting. The detained man was released that same day and the FBI declined to provide any comments on the raid. However, a Rhode Island attorney general claims that, “there is no basis to consider him a person of interest” due to the ballistics evidence retrieved from the crime scene not matching the gun in the man’s possession.
On December 15, Providence Police released more images and videos of the suspect, one showing the suspect wearing a black beanie, mask, green jacket, and black gloves. The FBI later offered a $50,000 reward for information related to the perpetrator and Providence police revealed that the shooter had used a 9mm firearm.
On December 17, Providence Police released a street map of where the suspect was confirmed to have been the day of the shooting. That same day, authorities revealed that they discovered DNA and fingerprint evidence on the shell casing found at the crime scene. Police also received a tip from a Reddit post about a suspicious vehicle found near the area at the time. The Reddit post also had information on a tip to look for a grey Nissan Sentra that had Florida license plates.
On December 18, law enforcement sources released suspicions that the shooting may be connected to the December 15 fatal shooting of an MIT professor, in Brookline Massachusetts, two days after the Brown Shooting.
That same day, with an arrest warrant, police went to an Extra Space Storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, and found 48-year-old Portuguese national Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente dead inside, with two guns on him. The autopsy later revealed that Valente killed himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and that he had been dead for two days.
On January 6, the Justice Department released a transcript of video recordings found in the storage facility. In these recordings, Valente confessed to the murders, saying that they had been planning it for years, but did not give a proper motive.
Suspect
Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente was born in Torres Novas, Portugal on January 22, 1977. He studied at the Istituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, from 1995 until 2000, reportedly avoiding his parents. After graduating first in his class from the school, he enrolled at Brown University’s physics PhD program in September 2000. Later in 2001 he took a leave of absence and formally withdrew from the doctoral program in June 2003. Former classmates described hims as a brilliant but arrogant student. According to Scott Watson, a physics professor at Syracuse University and a close friend of Valente’s, Valente “was often unhappy and even angry, complaining that classes were too easy and that the food on Brown’s campus was subpar” during the time they were both doctoral students.
After leaving Brown, Valente retired to Portugal in order to work as an IT specialist at SAPO. He later won the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery and obtained a permanent U.S. residency in April 2017. He had no criminal records and last lived in a working-class neighborhood known as Ive Estates in Florida. On November 28, 2025, he was also observed on the Brown campus by various sources who described his behavior as “suspicious”.
Allegedly Related Case
On December 15, at around 8:30 p.m. MIT physics professor Nuno Lourerio, a fellow classmate of Valente’s at the Istituto Superior Técnico, was fatally shot in the foyer of the apartment building where he lived in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was taken to a Medical Center in Boston with various gunshot wounds, where he was later pronounced dead in the morning of December 16.
Loureiro had served as the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center from 2024 until his death. Authorities have now linked a rental car to both shootings and determined that one of the guns found on Valente’s body was used in Loureiro’s murder.
Brown’s “path of repair, recovery and healing”
Brown’s leadership continues to acknowledge the long road of recovery that lies ahead following the mass shooting which killed two students and injured nine others. The identification of the suspect and conclusion of the manhunt will not erase the trauma, however officials and students alike have described it as a necessary step towards healing together.
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Brown_University_shooting#Shooting
https://www.brown.edu/news/2025-12-19/shooting-suspect-identified
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/brown-university-shooting-12-13-25
