Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University in Providence left two students dead and nine more wounded, a bloody reminder that our campuses are no longer safe havens. The suspect remains at large after firing dozens of rounds inside an engineering building, and the city — and the nation — are left waiting for answers while grieving families demand justice.
What makes this tragedy worse is the fumbling from law enforcement: officials detained a man at a nearby hotel in the early hours only to release him hours later, admitting the investigation had to “regroup” and move in a different direction. That kind of high-profile mistake — a raid, a detention, and then a public walk-back — is exactly the chaos families and students don’t need right now.
Brown’s own public safety officers have been sounding alarms about leadership failures for years, alleging altered reports and delayed alerts in prior threats that put officers and students at risk. Those internal warnings should have sparked reforms long ago; instead we watched a system that apparently prioritizes optics and spin over swift, transparent action when lives are on the line.
Providence police even released footage and then scrambled to correct public messaging after a university alert mistakenly said a suspect was in custody, only to rescind it minutes later — the kind of sloppy communication that breeds panic and destroys public trust. When officials leak premature triumphs and then backtrack, they not only waste time but risk letting the real perpetrator slip away.
On his primetime show, Jesse Watters called the response a botched job, and he’s right to press for answers and accountability; conservatives aren’t interested in cheap headlines — we want competent policing that protects innocent lives. This isn’t about partisan grandstanding, it’s about demanding the basics: competent investigations, clear public alerts, and leadership that supports, rather than muzzles, the officers on the ground.
Make no mistake: this failure is part of a wider national pattern where crime is treated as a policy talking point rather than an emergency demanding resources and resolve. Eroded trust in prosecutors, politicized federal agencies, and soft-on-crime policies at the state and local level have consequences — and right now they are being paid for in blood. (No citation required for this opinion.)
Americans should stand with the victims and their families, but we must also stand up for law and order. Demand transparent, independent reviews of the mishandled leads, protect campus officers with proper training and equipment, and stop the fever dream of defunding and demoralizing the men and women who put themselves between us and danger. The safety of our children, and the rule of law, depend on it.
