By Kimberlee Kruesi
Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University is accused in lawsuits from three students who were injured in the Dec. 13 campus shooting that the Ivy League school ignored prior warnings about the shooter and did not provide adequate security that could have prevented the tragedy.
The lawsuits, which were filed last week in Rhode Island Superior Court, allege that the unnamed plaintiffs have suffered because Brown failed to maintain “reasonable and appropriate security measures.”
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“As direct and proximate result of Brown’s aforementioned acts of negligence, Plaintiff suffered and became afflicted with grave and severe personal injuries, causing Plaintiff to suffer great pain of body, mind, nerves and nervous system,” one of the lawsuits states.
The plaintiffs behind the lawsuits are unnamed.
A spokesperson for Brown University said they were reviewing the complaints “carefully and promptly.”
“Out of respect for the privacy interests of the plaintiffs, we have no details to share on the merits of the litigation at this time,” spokesperson Brian Clark said in a statement.
According to law enforcement, gunman Claudio Neves Valente, 48, entered a study session in a Brown academic building on Dec. 13 and opened fire on students, killing 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and wounding nine others.
Two days later, authorities say, Neves Valente, who had been a graduate student at Brown studying physics about 20 years ago, also fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at Loureiro’s Boston-area home.
Neves Valente, who had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal in the 1990s, was found dead days later at a New Hampshire storage facility. Authorities say he killed himself. An autopsy determined that Neves Valente died Dec. 16, the same day Loureiro died in a hospital.
The lawsuits claim that Brown’s campus security was alerted by a custodian that Neves Valente had been “casing” the building but the school did not investigate the reports.
Shortly after the shooting, Brown’s president placed the campus police on leave amid a review of the school’s security policies.
Much of the focus has centered on whether the Ivy League school had security cameras installed in the building where the attack took place in and the overall ease of accessing campus buildings.
