{
  "id": "2025-12-13-risd-brown-shooting-delayed-alert",
  "slug": "risd-brown-shooting-delayed-alert-2025-12-13",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Rhode Island School of Design",
    "shortName": "RISD",
    "state": "RI",
    "type": "private-bachelors",
    "alertSystemName": "RISD Emergency Alert",
    "enrollment": 2500
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2025-12-13",
    "type": "active-shooter",
    "cleryCategory": "emergency-notification",
    "headline": "Campus alerted during a fatal active-shooter attack at a neighboring university",
    "headlinePublic": "Campus alerted during a fatal active-shooter attack at a neighboring university",
    "summary": "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'](https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown) 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](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/15/metro/brown-shooting-risd-alerts/), roughly 90 minutes after the first shots were fired. Students and faculty subsequently petitioned to merge the Brown and RISD campus alert systems.",
    "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.",
    "resolution": "confirmed-threat",
    "casualties": {
      "killed": 0,
      "injured": 0
    }
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestamp": "2025-12-13T16:28:00-05:00",
      "channel": "sms",
      "verbatimText": "RISDAlert: Critical update. Police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer Streets. Avoid until further notice.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown",
      "sourceDescription": "The Brown Daily Herald (quoted the exact RISDAlert text)",
      "annotations": [
        "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"
      ],
      "characterCount": 121
    },
    {
      "sequence": 2,
      "type": "update",
      "timestamp": "2025-12-13T17:30:00-05:00",
      "channel": "sms",
      "verbatimText": "RISDAlert: Critical Update Active Shooter on Brown Campus. Police activity reported in the area of Brook and Thayer. Avoid area until further notice.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/providence/students-petition-to-merge-risd-and-brown-campus-alert-systems-after-shooting/",
      "sourceDescription": "WPRI / Change.org petition documentation, which quoted the 5:30 p.m. RISDAlert verbatim; corroborated by NewsNation",
      "annotations": [
        "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. EST '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."
      ],
      "characterCount": 149
    }
  ],
  "context": "[Rhode Island School of Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Brown_University_shooting), killing two students and wounding nine others before fleeing. Brown issued an explicit active-shooter alert at [4:22 p.m. EST](https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown). RISD's first alert, sent at 4:28 p.m. EST, 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](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/15/metro/brown-shooting-risd-alerts/), 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](https://www.change.org/p/unify-risd-and-brown-university-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.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "RISD students express concern about lack of alerts during shooting at Brown - The Brown Daily Herald",
      "url": "https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown",
      "type": "student-newspaper"
    },
    {
      "title": "Neighbors say Providence, RISD didn't do enough to warn of active shooter at Brown - The Boston Globe",
      "url": "https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/15/metro/brown-shooting-risd-alerts/",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "Students petition to merge RISD and Brown campus alert systems after shooting - WPRI",
      "url": "https://www.wpri.com/news/local-news/providence/students-petition-to-merge-risd-and-brown-campus-alert-systems-after-shooting/",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "Brown University shooting: Students petition to merge RISD and Brown campus alert systems - NewsNation",
      "url": "https://www.newsnationnow.com/crime/brown-university-shooting-risd-campus-alerts/",
      "type": "local-media"
    },
    {
      "title": "2025 Brown University shooting - Wikipedia",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Brown_University_shooting",
      "type": "other"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "medium",
  "tags": [
    "design-school",
    "arts-school",
    "active-shooter",
    "delayed-notification",
    "notification-failure",
    "adjacent-campus",
    "rhode-island",
    "providence",
    "specialty-institution",
    "clery-comparison",
    "risd"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-05-31",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-07-16",
  "addedBy": "ingestion",
  "communityResponse": {
    "sentiment": "negative",
    "summary": "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](https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown).",
    "quotes": [
      {
        "text": "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.",
        "speaker": "Zoe, RISD student and resident advisor",
        "source": "The Brown Daily Herald",
        "sourceUrl": "https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown",
        "sourceType": "student-newspaper",
        "isVerbatimConfirmed": false
      },
      {
        "text": "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.",
        "speaker": "Crystal Williams, RISD President",
        "source": "The Brown Daily Herald",
        "sourceUrl": "https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025/12/risd-students-express-concern-about-lack-of-alerts-during-shooting-at-brown",
        "sourceType": "student-newspaper",
        "isVerbatimConfirmed": false
      },
      {
        "text": "deeply disappointed",
        "speaker": "Parent of a RISD student, whose daughter's first notification only warned of \"police activity\"",
        "source": "The Boston Globe",
        "sourceUrl": "https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/15/metro/brown-shooting-risd-alerts/",
        "sourceType": "local-media",
        "isVerbatimConfirmed": false
      }
    ],
    "confidence": "medium"
  }
}