Providence police released body camera footage on Monday, depicting their response to the shooting at Brown University that occurred on December 13. They also made available audio recordings of emergency calls and communications related to the event.
Some of this material was edited to protect the privacy of victims and witnesses and to comply with public records laws. Following initial reports of a shooting around 4 p.m., the Brown University police contacted Providence emergency dispatch.
At 4:11 p.m., a caller described a suspicious person clad in black with a ski mask, although the direction in which this individual was heading remained unknown.
At 4:16 p.m., body camera footage captured an officer recommending caution to dispatch, noting that there was “active shooting.” Following this, the police methodically searched the Barth and Hawley building, checking each floor and directing other units to locate the shooter and any potential victims.
During the shooting, two students, Muhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, and Ella Cook, 19, were killed by Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente while attending an economics review session in Tanner Auditorium. According to an incident report from the Providence Police Department, the auditorium had stairs on both sides, with entrances located at either end. Umurzokov was found near an upper entrance, while Cook was located between the aisles.
The investigation continued as detectives presented images of Neves-Valente from surveillance footage to shooting victims. One victim, upon seeing the photo of the shooter, became visibly shaken and emotional, confirming Neves-Valente as the attacker.
Neves-Valente, a former Brown University student enrolled in a doctoral physics program from 2000 to 2001, officially dropped out in the fall of 2003. He was discovered dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, in December, and an FBI officer found him with a self-inflicted gunshot wound during the search for his arrest.
