Three Brown University students injured in a shooting on the school’s Providence, Rhode Island campus last December have filed negligence lawsuits alleging that the Ivy League school ignored warnings about the shooter and failed to provide adequate security.
Eleven people were struck by gunshots and two died as a result of the shooting that took place on December 13, 2025 in the Barus and Holley engineering building while students were preparing for examinations.
The plaintiffs are not named in their lawsuits except as J. Doe. The J. Doe No. 1 complaint alleges that an insufficient number of security cameras, unrestricted access to the building where the shooting occurred, failure to follow up on reports of the alleged shooter’s suspicious presence on campus, and inadequate training of safety personnel all contributed to a breach of the school’s duty to provide a safe environment.
After a nearly week-long manhunt, the shooter — Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a former Brown student — was found dead from a gunshot in a storage facility in New Hampshire. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found that he was responsible for the Brown shooting and, two days later, the murder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Dr. Nuno Loureiro in Brookline, Massachusetts. Loureiro was a classmate of Valente’s in Portugal before they both came to the United States.
Campus Sightings
A school custodian had observed Valente inside Barus and Holley and elsewhere on campus on approximately a dozen occasions before and on the day of the shooting and reported to campus security that Valente appeared to be “casing” the area. Despite that information, the lawsuit says the university took “no known reasonable or meaningful steps to investigate the reported threat, identify Valente, restrict his access to the building, increase monitoring or security presence, or otherwise secure Barus and Holley.”
Also, the complaint says the building was secured by only two exterior cameras and the interior cameras did not cover the auditorium where the shooting took place or the nearby hallways.
The building was also open and accessible. “Students and non-students alike were free to enter and move through the building without meaningful restriction,” the complaint maintains.
Brown Students Return to Tighter Security After Campus Shooting
Following the shooting, Brown undertook measures to enhance campus safety, which the complaint says the university should have undertaken earlier. The school also placed its campus police chief on administrative leave.
The plaintiffs maintain that Brown owed them, as well as other students, faculty, and individuals present for scheduled academic or other lawful activities, a “duty to maintain reasonably safe premises and to protect them from and warn them of foreseeable harm, including by third parties.”
Victims’ Injuries
Plaintiff J. Doe No. 1 claims to have suffered “grave and severe” personal bodily injuries, pain and suffering, and emotional distress and to have incurred significant medical expenses.
Each plaintiff seeks at least $10,000 in compensatory damages plus punitive damages.
“Brown’s conduct, as alleged herein, was so willful, reckless, and wicked as to amount to criminality, which, for the good of society and as warning to Brown, ought to be punished by an award of punitive damages over and above that provided in an award of compensatory damages,” the lawsuit says.
A Brown spokesperson told the Boston Globe that the university is “reviewing the complaints carefully and promptly,” but has “no details to share on the merits of the litigation” at this time.
The suits were filed on April 23 in Providence/Bristol County Superior Court. A hearing has been scheduled for May 5.
A few weeks after the shooting, the Trump Administration’s Education Department launched an investigation intended to review whether Brown violated the Clery Act, a 1990 law that requires colleges to uphold certain safety and security standards.
FBI Report
The FBI report concluded that Valente began planning the attack at Brown in 2022, which is when he acquired the storage unit in New Hampshire, and transported his firearms to that location. At the time of the shooting, Valente was unemployed and had no criminal record or prior documented contacts with law enforcement.
The FBI determined that Valente lived a transient lifestyle and was socially isolated. He believed he was being treated unjustly and kept from reaching his full potential. Valente’s victims were symbolic in nature. “Brown University as a whole and Dr. Loureiro represented to the shooter his personal failures and injustices he perceived were inflicted by others over time,” the report states.
Topics
Lawsuits
Education
Universities
Interested in Education?
Get automatic alerts for this topic.
