Following the mass shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and nine others injured, students left the campus in droves, including a Chicagoan who is thankful to be back with family – but is left recounting a life-changing tragedy.
Freshman Amelie Devine recalled what she felt on Saturday afternoon, when she was just two blocks away from the engineering building as the deadly shooting spree unfolded.
“I was getting on my coat, and my phone started blowing up,” she shared. “I was alone in my room. It was scary and isolating.”
Devine said some of her closest friends were in the building when shots rang out.
“I’m alive, I didn’t get shot three times in the leg, like my best friend did, and I count myself lucky, as lucky as can be,” she said. “Considering somebody walked into a room of students with an automatic weapon and unloaded a gun on dozens of people. It’s absolutely heinous.”
Devine and other Brown University students returned home to the Chicago area following the shooting, including the three children of alumna Giovanna Cavallo. Her daughters, Natalie and Allison, are seniors, and her son, Nicholas, is a freshman.
Natalie and Nicholas are both studying engineering.
“Natalie is a computer engineer, she basically lives in that building, especially around finals, so she would have probably been going yesterday at some point to work on a final project in the labs at Barus and Holley,” Cavallo told NBC Chicago on Sunday. “And my son is an electrical engineer. He’s there all the time.”
Authorities on Sunday released an initial person of interest from custody and have since ramped up efforts to find the gunman.
Images and video of a new person of interest were released on Monday night, with the FBI urging everyone to take a close look at images captured two hours before the shooting.
Authorities said the shooter moved through older parts of campus and buildings with fewer cameras.
NBC Chicago spoke with Dr. Steven Meyers, a professor of psychology at Chicago’s Roosevelt University and a graduate of the Brown University class of 1990, who described the area.
“It’s not designed to be the most tech monitoring because of the age of buildings, how they are interspersed, and it’s open campus, fenced off,” he said. “I can appreciate what it would be like to appreciate modern surveillance.”
As authorities have yet to obtain a clear photo of the person of interest’s face, the FBI is doubling down on efforts to locate new images.
“We’re gonna put somebody in handcuffs,” said Oscar Perez, Providence’s police chief.
As they continue to process what transpired, students like Devine hope their friends can heal, physically and mentally.
“It’s really hard to imagine that snow not stained with blood anymore, or that campus without that tragedy, will be disturbing and off-putting to go back to classroom,” she stated.
Devine said she hopes everyone focuses on the big picture and takes action.
“Do not wait to care,” she said. “Do not wait for it to be you.”
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