Tipsheet

This Seems to Be Why Brown Placed their Top Security Official on Administrative Leave After the Shooting

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  December 24, 2025 6:55 AM

What a nightmare. On December 13, Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national, opened fire in the engineering building at Brown University, killing two and wounding another nine. He was found dead five days later in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. 

The building was unsecured, reportedly because it was finals. Some students dispute the claim made by university president Christina Paxson. In the aftermath, we found out that a faculty member and the school custodian noticed Valente casing the building weeks before the attack. It was “John,” a homeless man who lived in the basement, who cracked the case open, getting Valente’s description, including the model, make, and tags for his rental car. 

Still, the shambolic pressers held by Rhode Island and Brown officials remain a point of contention, with Mayor Brett Smiley whining that they were tired. Of course, because liberals don’t work. But Brown seems prepared for lawsuits, soliciting the counsel of a former US attorney and suspending the university police chief as the Trump administration announced it would be investigating the lax security conditions (via CBS News): 

Brown University police chief Rodney Chatman has been placed on leave more than a week after the mass shooting that killed two students and injured nine others in Providence, Rhode Island. 

School president Christina Paxson said Monday evening that Brown will commission a review of campus safety and the response to the Dec. 13 shooting that investigators say was carried out by former grad student Claudio Manuel Neves Valente. 

"A review like this is standard," Paxson said in a statement. "As it takes place, Vice President for Public Safety and Emergency Management Rodney Chatman is on leave, effective immediately." 

Paxson said former Providence Police Department chief Hugh T. Clements will serve as interim chief for public safety and police while Chatman is on leave. Chatman was appointed to his role in 2021 and previously worked in campus safety at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Utah. 

A new police chief, Hugh Clements, has been appointed in the interim. Clements formerly headed the police department in Providence.