Brown University Shooting: Gunman's Motive Still Unknown; School Police Chief on Leave

More than a week after a gunman killed two students at Brown University and an MIT professor at his apartment in Brookline, authorities are still searching for a motive.

Claudio Manuel Neves Valente is believed to have opened fire in a Brown lecture hall on Dec. 13, killing two students — Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov — and injuring nine others. Authorities say Neves Valente then drove to Boston, and two days later shot and killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in the foyer of his Brookline apartment.

According to Providence police, Neves Valente’s motivation remains a mystery.

“At this point, we have not determined a motive,” said Kristy DosReis, chief public information officer for the Providence Police Department. “We continue to investigate.”

Neves Valente was a graduate student at Brown, arriving on campus in the fall of 2000. He left the program in the spring of 2001 and formally withdrew from the university in 2003.

An old friend who knew him during their time as students at Brown said Neves Valente harbored anger toward the school and the community.

“He hated Brown and he hated Providence,” Syracuse professor Scott Watson said, describing Neves Valente as “socially awkward.”

Neves Valente and Loureiro, both Portugal natives, had been undergraduate classmates at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, providing a possible link.

The Norfolk District Attorney’s Office is investigating Loureiro’s killing. When asked about a potential motive, Norfolk DA spokesman David Linton said there were no updates.

“The investigation is ongoing,” Linton said. “We have no further information to share at this time.”

Brown’s response to the shooting has come under criticism.

A custodian reported a suspicious person on campus in the weeks before the shooting, looking into classrooms and hiding in a bathroom; he later confirmed to police that the man he saw was Neves Valente.

Neves Valente was able to flee the scene after the shooting, and investigators were unable to trace his movements until days later, when a Reddit post revealed vital information used to track him to a car rental agency in Boston.

On Monday, Brown placed its chief of police on leave and announced plans to enhance campus security.

The federal government is now putting Brown under the microscope, as the U.S. Department of Education is threatening to pull federal funding from the university.

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