Manhunt for Brown University shooter continues; New surveillance footage released I Live Updates from Fox News Digital
A Brown University spokesperson released a statement on Wednesday addressing the school’s emergency alert systems following criticism of its response in the immediate aftermath of the deadly campus shooting.
The statement said that a decision was made not to sound the school’s alert siren, which is used for campus-wide emergencies including natural disasters.
“Our public safety team made the decision not to deploy the siren to avoid inadvertently sending community members into the path of an active shooter who was reported to be in a University building complex,” the statement said.
The spokesperson said its primary emergency notification system, called the BrownAlert system, reached approximately 20,000 people “minutes” after its Department of Public Safety was alerted to the shots fired on campus. This system, according to Brown, delivers warnings via phone, text and email.
The statement said the alert provided specific information on what location to avoid as DPS officers responded to the area of the reported shooting.
Critics have called the university’s immediate response following the shooting into question.
While the university now says it chose not to sound its Alert Siren on campus, the first alert message sent out to students and staff came at 4:22 p.m., 17 minutes after the shooting happened.
The person of interest was seen walking away from the Barus and Holley engineering building on surveillance video at about 4:06 p.m., according to authorities.
The Providence Police Department (PPD), which continues to be the lead investigative agency on the case, sent out an alert 43 minutes after the shooting, at 4:49 p.m. Saturday, but did not confirm the nature of the incident.
Nearly an hour and a half after the shooting, at 5:33 p.m., police finally confirmed multiple people were shot “in the area of Brown University,” requesting students shelter in place.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch and Fox News’ Bryan Llenas contributed to this report.
