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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Brown University graduate student who has now lived through two campus shootings says she is in disbelief after the suspect initially detained in Sunday night’s shooting was released less than a day later.
Sachi Gandhi, a second-year biotech master’s student, told Fox News Digital she was at her off-campus home in Fox Point when the gunfire broke out.
The moment triggered memories of the 2023 shooting at the University of North Carolina, where she spent eight hours locked in a lab while a professor was killed in a nearby building.
“I was in lab — I was locked in lab for like eight hours,” Gandhi said. “It was very similar to this in the sense that not a lot of students knew what was going on. Everyone was feeding each other misinformation because everyone’s scared. Everyone is just so scared when they hear stuff.”
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Gandhi stressed that the two shootings were very different, noting the Brown incident involved multiple victims — a “mass casualty,” in her words. But the emotional experience, she said, was still “equally as scary.”
Speaking about the Brown shooting, Gandhi said students initially breathed a sigh of relief when police announced they had taken a suspect into custody. But when authorities later released that same individual, panic spread across campus.
“It was really, really scary,” she told Fox News Digital. “Most of my friends have already left. My parents called saying they were driving up from Georgia to get me.”
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She said the reversal left students feeling exposed and unprotected.
“It’s really messed up,” Gandhi said. “And where is our money going if we can’t catch this guy?”
She clarified she was referring to taxpayer dollars, not her Brown tuition.
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Gandhi praised Brown University, calling it an “amazing institution” with extensive camera coverage. Her frustration lies with the process that allowed the detained suspect to walk free so quickly.
“I’m more upset about finding someone and then releasing them a day later,” she said. “It just messes with a lot of students, especially the ones who are still here.”
The shooting at Brown resulted in multiple victims and sent the campus community into lockdown as police launched a manhunt for the gunman. Authorities have not announced any new arrests.
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Gandhi said that while the shootings were different in scale and circumstance, both left students facing the same fog of fear, confusion, and misinformation.
“No one knew what was real,” she said. “That’s exactly what happened at UNC, too.”
Despite the fear, she said she has seen Brown students support each other in the aftermath, just as UNC students did following their campus shooting.
“It’s nice to see the community band together,” she said.
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But for many students, including Gandhi’s friends, the fear hasn’t subsided.
“They’ve already packed up and left,” she said. “People don’t feel safe right now.”
Stepheny Price covers crime, including missing persons, homicides and migrant crime. Send story tips to [email protected].
