First-year Brown University Benjamin DiBella was in the Sciences Library at the Providence college Saturday afternoon when someone yelled that there was an active shooter on campus.
There was — but in a nearby building, Barus & Holley, where a gunman opened fire on people in a classroom, authorities said, killing two and wounding nine others. The manhunt for the shooter was ongoing early Sunday.
DiBella went to the messaging board Sidechat, “and saw dozens of messages all only minutes old noting panic and gunshots,” DiBella said.
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What followed was a lockdown on the 9th floor, where doors were barricaded and people scrolled news feeds for information over the next two-and-a-half hours, he said.
“We were aware that police forces were gradually clearing the floors of the Sciences Library, and at times we heard them on floors above and beneath us,” DiBella said.
The Ivy League college warned everyone on campus to shelter-in-place after reports of the active shooter came in at around 4:05 p.m., instructing them to lock doors and silence phones. They were to run, and fight, if absolutely necessary.
The order was still in effect at midnight for the campus and surrounding neighborhoods. A perimeter had also been established, with people still waiting in administrative buildings for a law enforcement escort to leave.
Brown University students are evacuated in a public bus after a mass shooting at the Barus & Holley building in Providence, R.I., on Saturday.Bing Guan / AFP via Getty Images
In his dorm room Saturday night, sophomore Satvik Paduri considered himself one of the lucky ones. He arrived home about an hour before the shooting and subsequent lockdown.
“I definitely don’t feel comfortable going out of my dorm room just because they haven’t found the shooter,” Paduri, 19, of Texas, said. “Obviously, he could be anywhere.”
All of Paduri’s friends are safe — but there were fears when one of them, who was in the engineering building, was marked online as still being there after the shooting.
“It turns out he was able to get out, but just left his phone behind in the panic,” Paduri said. “It’s just horrifying that something like this has occurred so close to home, he said.
Atman Shah, also a sophomore, and his friend Amber were staying with friends, six in all in a dorm where four normally live. He and Amber were having a meeting about a block away at a cafe when everyone started quickly leaving.
“You saw police cars with lights and sirens going like 60 mph down a residential road, and that’s when we knew ‘OK, something serious is happening,’” said Shah, 19, of California.
He said it seemed likely they would all spend the night in the room.
The shock of the shooting and the panic of trying to reach friends who had left their phones behind had begun to ease by Saturday night, he said.
“As time goes on, it just becomes a deep sadness,” Shah said.
Paduri and Shah both said they are fortunate neither they or any of their friends were hurt, and their thoughts are with the victims.
Both have some experience tangentially to shootings in public places that occurred when there was gunfire at malls where their friends either worked or were shopping.
“But this hits a lot closer to home,” Paduri said. “It’s shocking.”
