The Brown University campus is reeling after the December 13 attack that left two students dead and nine more wounded during a study session — and the people in charge look more interested in press theater than solving the crime. Families are grieving while local officials trot out piecemeal updates and confusing corrections instead of hard answers. The community deserves swift justice and plainspoken accountability from the top.
Law enforcement has released grainy videos and images of a masked person of interest and even announced a reward, but the footage raises more questions than it answers about how a shooter slipped through an elite campus with reportedly thousands of dollars in endowment and “security” theater. Investigators now say they’ve recovered physical evidence, including DNA and fingerprints from shell casings, which should have been the kind of lead acted on immediately and aggressively. If true, DNA is a promising lead — but it won’t mean much if the chain of custody and investigative follow-through are sloppy.
Five days into the manhunt we watched authorities detain and then release a person who had been publicly treated as a suspect, a spectacular public-relations calamity that betrayed either shoddy vetting or premature leaks to the media. The hurried arrest-and-release sequence only fuels anger that the investigation is being handled in fits and starts, and that innocent people can be smeared while the real perpetrator walks free. The chief executives in charge — from the mayor to campus leadership — owe the families clarity, not spin.
Just as outrageous is the revelation that the shooting happened in an older wing with few, if any, surveillance cameras while the newer, nicer part of the building was better monitored. Conservative readers shouldn’t accept hand-waving about “building age” as an excuse for a lack of basic security at a $7.2 billion institution; taxpayers and parents pay for student safety and expect competence. Reporters and concerned citizens are rightly demanding to know whether the university’s camera placement or local sanctuary policies contributed to blind spots investigators now lament.
Officials insist they’re protecting witness integrity and say survivors’ descriptions match the person of interest — but watchdogs and local reporters point out that authorities still haven’t produced a clear public accounting of who was interviewed and when. That silence only feeds suspicion that bureaucratic caution has tipped into incompetence, and that precious time was lost when eyewitness accounts could have been canvassed and cross-checked. The public has a right to know whether students were properly questioned while the trail was fresh.
We should be thankful the investigators say they recovered biological evidence; modern forensic tools like DNA and fingerprint analysis can and do close cases, and the public should insist the labs, warrants, and investigative steps be executed flawlessly. But the whole point of gathering evidence is to make an arrest, not to create talking points for pressers where officials dodge basic questions about response times, camera coverage, and why a high-dollar university looks more interested in optics than deterrence. If authorities are serious about finding the killer, they will prioritize results over political spin.
This is a moment for clarity, not cover-ups. Brown’s trustees, Providence’s elected leaders, and law enforcement must stop soothing outrage with empty phrases and start delivering the concrete actions families want: comprehensive witness interviews, full accounting of campus security failures, and a relentless manhunt until the killer is in custody. Patriots of every political stripe should demand nothing less than real accountability and real protection for our campuses.
