Brown University freshman Benjamin DiBella was in Providence College’s Sciences Library Saturday afternoon when someone shouted that there was an active shooter on campus.
There was — but at 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 gunman continued Sunday morning.
DiBella went to the message board Sidechat, “and saw dozens of messages, all just minutes old, noting panic and gunshots,” DiBella said.
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What followed was a lockdown on the 9th floor, where the doors were barricaded and people scrolled through news feeds for information for the next two and a half hours, he said.
“We were aware that police were gradually clearing the floors of the Science Library, and at times we heard them on floors above and below us,” DiBella said.
The Ivy League college warned everyone on campus to shelter in place after reports of the active shooter came in around 4:05 p.m., ordering them to lock doors and turn off phones. They had to run and fight when absolutely necessary.
The order was still in effect for the campus and surrounding neighborhoods as of midnight. A perimeter had also been established, where people still wait in administrative buildings for a law enforcement escort to leave.
On Saturday evening, in his dorm room, 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 leaving my dorm room just because they haven’t found the shooter,” said Paduri, 19, from Texas. “Obviously he could be anywhere.”
All of Paduri’s friends are safe, but fear arose when one of them, who was in the engineering building, was marked online as still there after the shooting.
“It turns out he was able to get out, but left his phone in panic,” says Paduri. “It’s just horrific that something like this happened so close to home,” he said.
Atman Shah, also a second-year student, and his girlfriend Amber were staying with friends, six in total, in a dorm where four normally live. He and Amber were having a meeting at a cafe about a block away when everyone quickly left.
“You’d see police cars with lights flashing and sirens going 60 miles per hour down a residential road, and that’s when we knew, ‘OK, something serious is happening,'” says Shah, 19, from 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 began to subside Saturday evening, he said.
“As time goes by, it just becomes a deep sadness,” Shah said.
Paduri and Shah both said they were fortunate that neither they nor any of their friends were injured, and that their thoughts are with the victims.
Both have some experience involving shootings in public places that occurred when there was gunfire in malls where their friends were working or shopping.
“But this hits much closer to home,” Paduri said. “It is shocking.”
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