The lockdown, which extended late into the night, was finally lifted early Sunday morning. However, officials have yet to disclose any details regarding a possible motive behind the incident.
Former ‘Survivor’ contestant just left the building
Eva Erickson, a doctoral student who gained recognition as a runner-up on the reality show Survivor earlier this year, mentioned that she had left her lab in the engineering building just 15 minutes before the shooting began.
As the first openly autistic contestant on Survivor, Erickson made waves for sharing personal insights on the show. During the campus lockdown, she took to social media to inform followers that she was safe in the gym and confirmed that her lab colleague present at the time had been evacuated without harm.
Meanwhile, Alex Bruce, a senior biochemistry major at Brown, was busy with his final research project in his dormitory, which is located directly across from the scene, when he first heard the sirens blaring outside.
“I’m just in here shaking,” Bruce confessed, as he watched armed officers surround his building from his dorm window.
Students in a nearby laboratory, upon receiving an emergency alert, shut off their lights and sought refuge under desks. Chiangheng Chien, an engineering doctoral student, was approximately the same distance from the shooting when it occurred.
Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.
“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.
Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the US, is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges with roughly 7300 undergraduates and more than 3000 graduate students.
