The manhunt that had Rhode Island and New England on edge came to a grim end when authorities found the suspected shooter dead in a New Hampshire storage unit, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Law enforcement officials say the discovery finally brought closure to a frantic search that lasted several days, and brought into focus failures we should not ignore.
Officials have identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who once studied physics at Brown in the early 2000s but had no current affiliation with the university. This wasn’t the random act some in the media want to paint it as — it was carried out by a man with a discrete academic past tied to both institutions now grieving.
The carnage itself was devastating: two Brown students were killed and nine others wounded in a campus classroom, and two days later an MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, was found shot to death at his home. These were real lives taken — bright students and a respected scientist — and their families deserve answers and swift accountability from every institution that failed them.
Investigators say the case cracked after a tipster recognized the suspect from released images, tracing him through rental-car footage and a trail of altered license plates before surveillance finally placed him at the storage facility where he was found with firearms. That kind of painstaking detective work deserves praise, but it also shows how easily a dangerous individual can slip through systems meant to keep campuses safe.
At this point authorities are still sorting motive and many unanswered questions remain about why these victims were targeted and how the suspect planned his movements. Campus leaders and local officials should stop hiding behind platitudes about “community healing” and answer straight questions about gaps in security and why an older building with few cameras was left exposed.
Americans of every political stripe should be united in calling out the weaknesses this tragedy exposed: soft security policies, a reluctance to harden vulnerable points on campus, and bureaucratic blind spots that make it easier for predators to strike. Colleges that prioritize woke priorities over commonsense safety measures owe students and families a full accounting and immediate fixes. (Opinion)
The federal response has been decisive in a way conservative voters appreciate: the administration moved quickly to pause the Diversity Visa green card lottery after officials said the suspect entered the U.S. through that program in 2017. If there are policy tools that protect Americans without trampling the rule of law, now is the time for hard, common-sense reforms to immigration and vetting.
Our hearts go out to the victims and their families, and to the brave officers who followed the trail to bring an end to the threat. This moment should harden our resolve: protect our campuses, secure our borders, and demand accountability from institutions that have become too comfortable putting ideology ahead of the safety of ordinary Americans. (Opinion)
