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.
2 messages in sequence · 1 verified verbatim
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The Brown Daily Herald (quoted the exact RISDAlert text)How the campus community received and interpreted the alert(s), in their own words.
RISD's alerting drew heavy criticism: students and parents said RISD took roughly 90 minutes to identify the nearby Brown shooting as an active shooter and described its early notifications only as vague "police activity," prompting a petition to merge the two schools' alert systems.
“We had our team members on Brown campus studying for finals as we finished closing the residence halls. We only knew what was happening because of people who took Brown classes.”
“there are lessons to learn and act upon — among them enhanced internal and external communication and coordination, especially given the mutual nature of our campuses.”
“deeply disappointed”
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Campus Alert Archive. "Rhode Island School of Design: Campus alerted during a fatal active-shooter attack at a neighboring university." Incident of December 13, 2025. Added May 2026; last updated August 2026. https://campusalertarchive.com/case/risd-brown-shooting-delayed-alert-2025-12-13/
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