“Unlikely” Brown Could Have Prevented Mass Shooting

It’s “highly unlikely” Brown University could have prevented the Dec. 13, 2025, mass shooting that killed two students and injured nine others, according to an external review. 

The global consulting firm Teneo Risk conducted an after-action review to examine Brown’s actions before, during and after the shooting and assess its campus safety and security program. The institution released the executive summary of Teneo’s report on Friday as part of its “Safety and Security at Brown University: Overview and Action Plan.”

Teneo found that Brown’s Department of Public Safety and Emergency Management officers “responded rapidly, effectively, and heroically to the December 13 shooting and performed as well as could be expected given the information they had and the tools available to them.” However, it added, “better equipment and training could have enhanced their response.”

In the months since former Brown Ph.D. student Claudio Neves Valente carried out the mass shooting and then went on to kill a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor before killing himself, three Brown University freshmen have sued the institution, saying the violence occurred “as a direct and proximate result of Brown’s” negligence. They claimed Brown didn’t properly respond to multiple warnings of Neves Valente’s suspicious behavior, nor did it properly secure and monitor the Barus and Holley building, where the shooting occurred in an auditorium.

Teneo’s review said it’s possible “more security patrols, stricter access control, and/or more comprehensive camera surveillance coverage” might have helped campus security identify and confront Neves Valente on one of his visits in or near the building.

“However, given that we did not identify how Neves Valente entered Barus and Holley prior to the incident, it is not possible to do more than speculate whether any of these measures would have had an impact,” the report said. 

It goes on to say that “had Neves Valente not had access to Barus and Holley, he might have gone to another building on campus or targeted individuals outside.” 

“Nothing about these events changes our main conclusion that nothing in our review suggests that Brown could have prevented the shooting,” the review says. 

The university’s safety and security action plan includes improvements in its governance and accountability; leadership, staffing, organization and training; emergency preparedness and protocols; and tools and technology. 

“The enduring contribution of the external reviews rests in the ways the findings will continue to strengthen Brown’s security model for the future,” Brown Chancellor Brian T. Moynihan and President Christina H. Paxson wrote in a letter to the Brown community. 

“And while there currently are no mechanisms for colleges and universities to predict or prevent acts of mass violence by individuals committed to perpetrating such attacks, there are no words to express the depth of our commitment to bolster security and to deter threats to Brown to the fullest extent possible.”