(NewsNation) — The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, said both his city and Brown University would benefit from security reviews following last weekend’s deadly campus shooting.
He said that includes an audit into surveillance assets that may have been lacking when a gunman entered a university building Saturday and opened fire in a classroom before fleeing. Authorities initially struggled to come up with useable images, saying cameras were not ubiquitous at the older building where the gunman struck.
“We’re going to do a full review of this incident, of our response,” Mayor Brett Smiley told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” on Friday. “We certainly pray that nothing like this happens again in our community, but something’s going to happen, and we want to be well prepared for it. Brown should do the same, and I think they will.”
Two students died and nine others were injured in the Dec. 13 attack. The suspected gunman who eluded police for several days, Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, was found dead of self-inflicted injuries in New Hampshire. Valente is also suspected of killing an MIT professor with whom he was acquainted Monday.
Given the gunman remained at large for so long, Smiley responded to suggestions that officials should not have said the community was safe. The mayor said police presence was increased noticeably to give people a sense of security.
“The fact of the matter is, this community is strong, it is resilient, and kids needed to go to school, people needed to go to work,” Smiley said.
Authorities also were panned for announcing Sunday that they’d detained a “person of interest” in the Brown University shooting. That person was subsequently released and cleared of any involvement.
Smiley said police were obligated to chase down the lead, among many others, but conceded the process wasn’t perfect.
“I allowed myself to think that maybe this was the person. I think the community allowed itself to think that maybe this was the person,” he said. “And so, it was a real disappointment when it turned out not to be. But we never put all of our eggs in one basket.”
Timeline of Brown University shooting and MIT professor killing
Two students were killed and nine others injured when a gunman opened fire Dec. 13 at Brown University. Police said they recovered dozens of shell casings, high-capacity magazines and multiple types of ammunition at the scene.
Two days later, MIT professor Nuno F. Gomes Loureiro, 47, was shot and killed at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Loureiro, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, had previously studied in Portugal with Valente.
Loureiro pursued his studies in Portugal and London and completed postdoctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, according to the school. He was a researcher at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at IST Lisbon before joining MIT in 2016.
U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley said Loureiro was the intended target of the attack at Brown and that authorities have no indication Valente knew the other victims.