Students share tense lockdown in building where Brown shooting happened

After about 90 minutes Shooting at Brown University When it started at 4:05 p.m., I passed police tape stretching across every street near the Barus & Holley building where it started, and shortly after parking nearby, I saw four young men running out of the lane, hands up, directed by police standing next to cars with their lights flashing.

The four emerged from the Brook Street entrance of one wing of the building. They were clearly shaken and continued running north on Brook Street for half a block with their hands up, then continued running another block toward the intersection of Waterman and Thayer streets.

They stood in front of an unreal scene. About a dozen officers, many in SWAT gear, stood with guns at the usually busy Thayer Street intersection. But now it had become a refuge and gathering point, where scores of students and others passed by law enforcement vehicles and police tape at an hour when the shooter was still at large (5:40 p.m.).

I approached three of the students I saw coming out, while the fourth was being interviewed by another reporter. We were standing right outside the In The Pink Acai & Smoothies store across from Pokeworks.

The three were shaken and did not want to give their full names, but all said they were graduate engineering students from China.

They were studying for finals in a small office lab on the third floor of Barus & Holley when their phones were buzzing with text alerts of an active shooter. The warnings told them to take shelter, silence the phones, hide, and “stay away from Barus & Holley,” but in their case, they were trapped in it.

They were constantly receiving warnings; The first message said a suspect had been arrested, but another message soon after said the opposite: “Police have no suspects in custody.”

The tallest of the three nicknamed me “Evans” and said he was a PhD student in engineering. It was freezing cold and he was wearing only a light shirt as we spoke. Obviously he didn’t have his jacket in the study and he didn’t have time to grab it as the police were ushering them out.

He told me that upon receiving the first warning, they immediately locked the office-laboratory door and all four of them, the only people in the room, crawled under the desks.

They had no idea they would be in this exact situation for nearly 90 minutes. They were among the last people evacuated as police moved from room to room. A large engineering and science building; seven floors of classrooms, faculty offices, research laboratories, and student project and study spaces.

Shortly after the warnings came, Evans said he heard gunshots but could not be sure, as it could have been other sounds such as doors closing.

“It sounded like shots were being fired, but I’d never heard shots being fired before,” Evans said.

The four agreed that they should stay there.

“We were so panicked,” Evans said.

They continued to lie on the floor under the tables, thinking it was safer to go down in case of shooting. But as the time increased from a few minutes to half an hour, then an hour, and more, it seemed like an endless ordeal.

Standing in the cold and crowd at the Thayer-Waterman intersection, I turned to the student next to him; He gave his name as Bok. 25 years old, computer engineering student.

He said the room they were housed in was small with computer stations. He thought he heard gunshots too, but he can’t be sure.

I turned to the third student, an engineering student also from China. He asked me to use the pseudonym RC.

This made me pause to ask why they didn’t want their full names used.

They said they were still afraid.

“Maybe he’ll come back,” RC said of the shooter.

It was an insight into the mindset of having just survived a building where a mass shooting took place.

As police lights reflected off the store windows on Thayer Street, RC showed me the alerts on their phones.

“Urgent. Reports of gunshots heard near Governor Street,” one said.

“If evacuation is not possible, hide,” said another.

And then: “FIGHT as a last resort.”

RC told me that after locking the door, they also turned off the light, so they lay in near darkness the entire time.

As the minutes passed, the four texted their friends and family to say they were safe so far. But they were afraid of what might happen. What if the gunman shoots through the door?

RC texted his family, “I love you.” So are the others.

Finally, probably around 5.30pm, there was a loud knock on the door and they heard voices shouting “Police”.

However, four of them did not open immediately.

“We just tried to be careful to double-check,” Evans said.

Bok said they were worried this might be a ruse by the shooter.

However, with several voices shouting “Police” through the locked door and the sound of security forces’ radios, it became clear that this was law enforcement.

When the four opened the door, they saw three cops in regular uniform and the fourth in SWAT gear.

But although the students were grateful for their rescue at first, things were tense. The police shouted: “Don’t move, hands up.”

“I said, ‘We are students, we are students,’” Bok recalls.

Still, the police turned them against the wall while they searched to make sure. Having done this, the police were still busy with their work as they escorted the four down three flights of stairs to the Brook Street exit.

When the students finally came out, police sternly told them to run toward Waterman Street with their hands up. This was because they were on the side of the street that had been cordoned off with yellow tape and no one was allowed there anymore.

That’s when I saw them.

I watched the four of them run a block down the sidewalk as I caught up with them on the other side of the street. Police and police cars lined the road that stretched the entire block; The flashing lights reflected off the four students as they ran.

I was a little surprised to see four students running out of the building. When I first arrived on the scene approximately 90 minutes after a report of a shooter, I thought everything would be safe. But it is clear that the evacuation is not over yet.

The foursome were a little nervous as they spoke at the intersection of Waterman and Thayer, a usually cheerful spot where students wander in and out of restaurants and stores.

But this was different; A mass shooting shook the security of Brown’s campus and the city’s quiet East Side.

By now this was global news, and while I was interviewing four of them my phone was buzzing with messages from my own friends and family asking if I was okay; I’m sure it’s happened to people all over Providence.

Evans asked me if they were safe here with the shooter still at large. I pointed out the police around us, but perhaps that was why Evans was on edge; The police were also nervous as they were clearly clutching automatic weapons.

The three students I interviewed were kind enough to take a photo with their backs to the camera, but immediately afterwards the police announced they were moving everyone away from the intersection and expanding police tape, so we had to move on.

When I got back to my car, I passed the entrance to Barus & Holley where I saw four students running out with their hands in the air.

Now, just inside, a half-dozen cops, mostly in SWAT gear, stood by the same glass door, still making sure the building was clear.

I stopped to take photos from the street, as did the nearby Channel 10 crew, but one of the cops opened the door and shouted at us to keep going.

He wasn’t nice about it and I couldn’t blame him.

It was 6.20pm – almost 2.5 hours after they started – and they had a job to do, a job that would continue throughout the night and beyond.

The area remained an active shooting scene, with the suspect still at large and the horrific incident gaining global attention.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article was first published in The Providence Journal: Brown students share tense quarantine ordeal after campus shooting