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America is grieving after a brazen shooting inside Brown University’s engineering building that left two students dead and nine others wounded during exam week. What should have been a sober, factual briefing instead turned into a late-night spectacle of confusion — the kind of performance that only deepens public distrust in our institutions.
Local officials held a press conference promising progress, only to walk it back hours later when the person they had detained was released without charges. That stunning reversal — and the admission that the investigation was essentially being restarted — is not a minor embarrassment; it is a breach of confidence at a time when families deserve clear answers and decisive action.
Police released grainy footage of a masked figure and then acknowledged the obvious problem: there simply weren’t enough cameras in the building, and the doors were left unlocked during the school day. Colleges that preach virtue but neglect basic security measures are failing the very students they profess to protect, and Providence’s patchwork response shows how laissez-faire campus policies can have deadly consequences.
We should also pause and honor the victims whose lives were stolen — including Ella Cook, a young vice president of the Brown College Republicans, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an aspiring neurosurgeon. These weren’t faceless statistics; they were bright students with futures, and the outrage we feel is amplified by the predictable hollow condolences from elites who offered platitudes before fixing what’s broken.
The FBI and local law enforcement have offered a reward and continue a manhunt, but the public rightly asks why the initial efforts produced so little clarity. When authorities flub evidence, mishandle detentions, and rely on low-quality surveillance, they prolong terror and weaken public safety — and that failure demands accountability, not spin.
This tragedy should sharpen, not soften, our resolve to protect campuses and communities. Universities and city leaders must stop treating security as an afterthought and start investing in real deterrence, better coordination with state and federal law enforcement, and policies that prioritize lives over optics. The families of the victims deserve more than sorrow — they deserve results.
