Campus Alert Archive
RISD

RISD's First Alert Said Only 'Police Activity' While an Active Shooter Killed Two People a Ten-Minute Walk Away at Brown

RIactive shooteremergency notificationmedium confidence
Confirmed Threat

On December 13, 2025, when an active shooter killed two students at Brown University's Barus and Holley Building less than a half-mile from the Rhode Island School of Design, RISD's first emergency alert at 4:28 p.m. EST described only 'police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer streets' without mentioning an active shooter or gunfire. Brown had already sent an explicit active-shooter alert at 4:22 p.m. EST, six minutes earlier. RISD students were not informed of an active shooter until approximately 5:30 p.m. EST -- roughly 90 minutes after the first shots were fired. Students and faculty subsequently petitioned to merge the Brown and RISD campus alert systems.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
0
Injured
0
Institution
Rhode Island School of Design
Private Bachelors · RI
~2,500 studentsRISD Emergency Alert
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence · 2 verified verbatim

INITIAL ALERTSMS
Verified verbatimThe Brown Daily Herald (quoted the exact RISDAlert text)121 chars
RISDAlert: Critical update. Police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer Streets. Avoid until further notice.
RISD sent its first alert at 4:28 p.m. EST on December 13, 2025, six minutes after Brown University's explicit active-shooter alert went out at 4:22 p.m. EST
The phrase 'police activity' did not communicate the nature of the threat; students reported they had no idea an active shooter was at large nearby until almost 90 minutes later
The exact text 'RISDAlert: Critical update. Police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer Streets. Avoid until further notice.' was confirmed by The Brown Daily Herald and independently corroborated by the Change.org petition and NewsNation coverage
UPDATESMS+1h 2m
Verified verbatimWPRI / Change.org petition documentation, which quoted the 5:30 p.m. RISDAlert verbatim; corroborated by NewsNation149 chars
RISDAlert: Critical Update Active Shooter on Brown Campus. Police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer. Avoid area until further notice.
The first RISD message to identify an active shooter came approximately 90 minutes after the shooting began at 4:00 p.m. EST and roughly 62 minutes after the initial 4:28 p.m. 'police activity' alert
By 5:30 p.m. EST, the shooter had already fled the Brown campus; this update came as a manhunt was underway
Verbatim: the message was reproduced in the student-organized Change.org petition and quoted by WPRI and NewsNation. Note the missing 'Streets' after 'Brook and Thayer' and absence of a period after 'Critical Update' as published.
Context

Background

Rhode Island School of Design is a private art and design college in Providence, Rhode Island, sharing the College Hill neighborhood with Brown University. On December 13, 2025, an active shooter entered Brown's Barus and Holley Engineering Building, killing two students and wounding nine others before fleeing. Brown issued an explicit active-shooter alert at 4:22 p.m. EST. RISD's first alert, sent at 4:28 p.m., described only 'police activity' near Brook and Thayer Streets. RISD students were not notified of an active shooter until approximately 5:30 p.m. EST -- nearly 90 minutes after the shooting began -- drawing immediate criticism from students who described confusion and fear during the gap. The contrast between Brown's notification and RISD's more opaque language echoed the Berklee-versus-Northeastern disparity during the April 2024 Gainsborough Street shooting. After the incident, students launched a Change.org petition to unify the RISD and Brown campus alert systems, arguing the two physically adjacent campuses should share emergency messaging infrastructure. The case adds a nationally prominent design school to the archive and documents how notification language -- 'police activity' versus 'active shooter' -- can leave adjacent students uninformed during a life-threatening emergency.
Outcome
Two Brown University students were killed and nine others wounded in the shooting (the perpetrator, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, fled the scene and died by suicide five days later in Salem, New Hampshire). RISD reported no injuries to its community. In the aftermath, students from both institutions signed a Change.org petition to unify the RISD and Brown campus alert systems. RISD and the broader Providence community faced criticism for the delayed active-shooter language in their notifications.
Provenance

Sources

  1. Student Paper
    RISD students express concern about lack of alerts during shooting at Brown - The Brown Daily Herald
    browndailyherald.com
  2. News
    Neighbors say Providence, RISD didn't do enough to warn of active shooter at Brown - The Boston Globe
    bostonglobe.com
  3. News
    Students petition to merge RISD and Brown campus alert systems after shooting - WPRI
    wpri.com
  4. News
    Brown University shooting: Students petition to merge RISD and Brown campus alert systems - NewsNation
    newsnationnow.com
  5. Source
    2025 Brown University shooting - Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org
Tags
design-schoolarts-schoolactive-shooterdelayed-notificationnotification-failureadjacent-campusrhode-islandprovidencespecialty-institutionclery-comparisonrisd
Added May 2026Updated May 2026Via ingestion