(NewsNation) — As final exams were underway at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, a gunman opened fire, killing two and injuring nine others.
One PhD student, whose office is in the same building where the shooting happened, said she had a strange intuition to go to the school gymnasium, straying from her normal time she usually works out. She left her lab roughly five minutes before the shooting started. She said she “feels lucky” because it could have saved her life.
“One of my lab mates was still in the building, and when I got this alert on my phone and everyone starts looking around and talking to each other getting on the phone with their parents, the first thing I thought of was, ‘Oh my gosh, like, is my lab mate okay? And I couldn’t get a hold of him,” Eva Erikson, a PhD engineering student, told NewsNation on “Morning in America with Hena Doba.”
Police told students the suspected gunman was in custody shortly after the incident but later retracted the statement. A suspect was taken into custody about 12 hours after the shooting early Sunday morning about 17 miles southwest of the school.
Erikson spent hours, along with her classmates, on lockdown. She said now that the suspect is in custody, she feels a sense of relief.
“After only two hours of being in lockdown, they had told us that they had someone, and everyone felt so safe. And then when they didn’t, it was really scary again. Now we finally are like, ‘OK, like, this is over. That feels so good.”
She described what the hourslong lockdown was like: Lights turned out, blinds pulled down and student IDs checked.
“Everyone just kind of lapsed into this really scared silence of worrying about our friends, the community, like just not knowing if we were going to be safe,” she said.
Another student survived a school shooting in 2019.
In November 2019, a student opened fire at Mia Tertta’s high school in Santa Clarita, California, killing two teens and injuring Tertta, then 15, who was struck in the stomach. She survived to become an advocate for victims of gun violence.
On Saturday, Tretta was in her Brown University dorm room when she began receiving alerts about an active shooter on campus.
“I chose Brown, and I chose Providence because it’s somewhere that I felt safer than I have before,” Tretta told “NewsNation Prime” on Saturday. “Safety is something that’s the most important to me … All day has been terrifying and shocking and confusing for me and for the rest of the Brown community.”
The university announced that classes and final exams were canceled.
Brown University Provost Francis J. Doyle III issued the following statement:
“Given the deeply tragic events that took place on our campus yesterday, all remaining undergraduate, graduate and medical classes, exams, and papers or projects for the Fall 2025 semester will not take place as scheduled. This choice was made out of our profound concern for all students, faculty and staff on our campus. In the immediate aftermath of these devastating events, we recognize that learning and assessment are significantly hindered in the short term and that many students and others will wish to depart campus. Students are free to leave if they are able. Students who remain will have access to on-campus services and support.”
NewsNation’s Natasha Zouves and Michael Ramsey contributed to this article.