In a chilling revelation, authorities have linked a single suspect to two fatal shootings that occurred at prestigious American universities within a 50-mile radius earlier this week.
The suspect, who had loose connections to both institutions, could have been apprehended after the first incident, potentially saving the life of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was murdered two days later.
The first incident, a mass shooting at Brown University, claimed the lives of students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and left nine others injured. Critics have lambasted the university for its apparent lack of surveillance footage from the Barus and Holley building, where the tragedy unfolded.
The assailant managed to evade capture, slipping past campus police in the aftermath of the shooting, as revealed by a home security video from the opposite end of the block.
However, as experts informed Fox News Digital, many major universities share similar security vulnerabilities. "American universities are, by and large, completely open," stated David Katz, a former DEA agent and CEO of Global Security Group, a private safety firm established post 9/11. Katz, who conducts active-shooter response training across the nation, expressed his concern over the lack of mandatory similar training for campus police at his son's university.
The suspect, identified as Neves-Valente, managed to escape the scene at Brown and drove 50 miles to Brookline, Massachusetts. There, he allegedly murdered renowned nuclear physicist Nuno Loureiro in his apartment. While the motive remains murky, it is known that Neves-Valente briefly attended Brown in 2000 and 2001 and had studied at the same Portuguese university where Loureiro completed his undergraduate degree.
Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed that Neves-Valente likely attended physics classes at Barus and Holley during his time as a student. However, she added, "We have thus far found no indication of any concerns pertaining to conduct or any public safety interactions during the short time Neves Valente was enrolled as a graduate student at Brown."
These horrific incidents are the latest in a string of campus violence that has plagued the year. "There have been a number of shootings on college campuses that should alert every chief of police and certainly every university president, that they should be looking at this issue very seriously," warned Greg Rogers, a former FBI agent who now teaches criminal justice at UVU.
While additional surveillance could have potentially thwarted Neves-Valente before he murdered Loureiro, Rogers believes it wouldn't have saved the Brown students. "We live in a world where, I've learned this in my undercover careerthats not something you can stop with extra cops on campus or some more video cameras," he told Fox News Digital.
The year has also witnessed widespread anti-Israel campus protests leading to clashes between police and pro-Palestinian agitators, and even congressional hearings. In one instance, police in riot gear stormed a building at Columbia University after agitators broke into and barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall.
Away from campus, Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione stands accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly to make a statement about the U.S. health insurance industry.
In the aftermath of the Brown shooting, experts have questioned the university's response, including confusing press conferences and the absence of surveillance footage capturing Neves-Valente. "We know how schools hide a lot of stuff but something's brewing here," said Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor of criminal justice at Penn State-Lehigh Valley.
As the investigation unfolded, online detectives erroneously suggested that a current Brown student could have been the suspect. Although investigators dismissed this theory, several articles on the university's website were inexplicably removed, leading to further criticism.
The real killer was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had briefly attended Brown over two decades ago. "It needs to be a national discussion by all of the colleges and their campuses on how they handle security," Giacalone told Fox News Digital. "Colleges like to handle things with kid gloves because they are institutions of higher learning, but at what cost?"
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