Ella Cook was killed in Brown University shooting because she was Republican, Tommy Tuberville claims
Alabama’s senior senator claimed that the Mountain Brook teenager killed in the mass shooting over the weekend at Brown University was “targeted” because she was a Republican.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., made the allegation Tuesday despite authorities not identifying a suspect, let alone a motive, in the Saturday afternoon shooting on the Ivy League school’s Providence, R.I. campus that left Ella Cook, 19, dead.
College Republicans of America said Cook was vice president of Brown’s College Republicans.
One other victim was killed and nine others were injured.
“She was a Republican leader in the Republican Party at Brown University. You can’t tell me she wasn’t targeted. I would hate to miss that opportunity to say that because the consequences here are very, very fishy. But at the end of the day … nobody really pays a price for this.
“And on campus … more and more of these are continuing to happen, and we’re gonna have to force the hand of these people that run these universities,” Tuberville said Tuesday during an appearance on conservative influencer Benny Johnson’s podcast.
Cook, a Brown sophomore who graduated from Mountain Brook High School, was one of two killed in the shooting that injured nine others.
The shooting happened about 4 p.m. Saturday during a study session inside a classroom in the Barus and Holley engineering building at the Rhode Island university as students prepared for final exams.
Also killed was was MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek national.
Tuberville said the shooting and others on college campuses reinforced the need for increased security.
“We have to ensure the safety of the young people on these campuses because they are a target,” the senator said.
Alabama’s senior senator suggested Democrats show more compassion for “drug dealers” than Americans, referring to the Democrats’ concerns over the Trump administration’s bombing of boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
“[I]t just amazes me that … the Democrats are more worried about the drug dealers than they are about people that are killing people here in our country,” Tuberville said.
Investigators provided no indication Tuesday that they were any closer to zeroing in on the suspect’s identity. In all the videos made public, the suspect’s face was masked or turned away, and authorities have only been able to give a vague description of him as being stocky and about 5 feet, 8 inches tall.
Officers have been canvassing around Providence in search of clues that might help them figure out who was behind Saturday’s campus shooting.
A service for Cook is set for Monday at Cathedral Church of the Advent, where she was an active, lifelong member.
“The qualities of Ella’s personality and ‘soul’ that most touched others were, foremost, her Christian faith, and especially her faith in the Death and Resurrection of Christ. She really meant it,” according to her obituary.
“And she wanted to share the good news of the grace that she received from the cross.”
“Not only did her personal faith shine out like a bright Christmas star, but she loved others as real people, not as objects,” the obituary read.
“Ella loved God with her whole heart and she loved people — with her whole heart.”
