Brown University Student Reflects on Recent Shooting

Mia Torretta, a junior at Brown University, felt a wave of anxiety when her phone buzzed with an emergency alert during finals week. She really hoped it couldn’t happen again.

Back in 2019, Torretta was shot in the abdomen during a mass shooting at Saugus High School in California. That incident claimed the lives of two students and injured her and two others when she was just 15 years old.

Studying in her dorm with a friend, Torretta received the initial emergency message about a situation in the engineering building. Naturally, she thought something must have happened, but hoped it wasn’t a shooting.

As alerts continued to alert everyone to lock down and stay away from windows, her anxiety deepened. By the day’s end, there were two fatalities and nine injuries, leaving yet another campus in Providence, Rhode Island, shaken.

Torretta shared her thoughts during a phone conversation, stating, “No one should have to go through a shooting once, much less twice.” She never imagined she’d be facing such terror again.

This experience highlights a difficult reality for today’s college students. For those like Torretta, who grew up with lockdown drills and safety rehearsals, encountering violence on campus feels like a painful repeat of history.

Students today have endured multiple incidents during their educational journeys, reminiscent of the survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 and a subsequent shooting at Florida State University.

Zoe Wiseman, another student at Brown, recalled being adjacent to the Parkland tragedy, noting how she remembered hearing gunshots while outside her middle school. Those sounds, she says, left a lasting imprint.

Ben Greenberg, the son of Louisville’s mayor, experienced a shocking moment himself in school when he was pulled from class due to an assassination attempt on his father. Yet, when he moved to Providence, he thought he might find some peace.

Now, with the recent shooting happening right across from his new residence, he and a friend felt compelled to barricade their door for safety. They stacked a mini-fridge and a bookshelf to create a makeshift defense.

Greenberg spoke with his father throughout the night, and the fear in his voice was palpable. The emotional toll of violence, he reflected, stretches beyond physical injuries, creating lasting trauma.

Torretta became an advocate for stricter gun control laws after her own shooting experience, working with the Students Demand Action Group. Her fight focused particularly on “ghost guns,” which can evade regulation and tracking.

After the Brown shooting, she noted her dedication to writing a dissertation on the experiences of students impacted by gun violence, influenced heavily by her own journey. She praised Brown as a place where she felt safe and believed in a return to normalcy after trauma. However, the recent events shattered that sense of security, and she reflected somberly: “It didn’t have to happen.”