One Question Looms Large: Why Were There NO Cameras Where the Brown Shooting Occurred?
“Over the summer, radical human rights groups demanded Brown disable security cameras so Palestinian activists could raise hell under the radar. … Did they cave? We asked. No response.”
The officials presiding over Brown University’s press conferences on the Saturday attack — which left two students dead, including the vice president of the Republican Club, and nine others wounded — are beginning to resemble the Keystone Cops. Five days in, their failure to answer the most basic questions about the deadly shooting leaves most of us wondering why they hold these media briefings at all.
From Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez and Mayor Brett Smiley to Brown University President Christina Paxson and Campus Police Chief Rodney Chatman, the level of incompetence on display has stunned even the most sympathetic observers.
Fox News host Jesse Watters detailed the group’s inadequate response to the tragedy on his Wednesday night program. After five days, officials have no idea “who the shooter is, where he is, or what he looks like,” he said.
The utter desert of information in this case has some wondering if Brown is covering something up. But officials maintain the university is “cooperating fully with law enforcement.”
One question looms large: why were there no cameras inside or outside the Barus & Holley Building where the shooting occurred?
Instead of initial estimates of between 800-900 cameras on campus, it’s now being reported that there were as many as 1,200. Yet none of them captured an image of the shooter prompting Watters to ask, “Is it dumb luck that he found the one blind spot on campus or is he a student who knows the lay of the land?”
Watters played video of a Fox News reporter standing outside the Barus & Holley building which is located on the perimeter of the campus. There were no visible security cameras.
Officials claim the reason there were no cameras inside or outside the building is because it is old. But Watters shows photos of the university president’s home, which is roughly 100 years old. It is fully equipped with “state of the art” security cameras.
Watters reported that “Brown is the most liberal Ivy League school” and that they “take DEI more seriously than safety.”
“The school’s been under intense pressure from the Palestinian students. The president,” he claimed, “has been heckled for years by Muslim underclassmen and she always bends the knee.”
“Over the summer,” he said, “radical human rights groups demanded Brown disable security cameras so Palestinian activists could raise hell under the radar.”
“Did they cave? We asked. No response.”
While this remains speculative, if administrators did in fact disable the cameras in response to pressure from pro-Palestinian activists, the university will have a great deal to answer for.
Jesse Watters: “Over the summer, radical left human rights groups demanded Brown [University] disable its security cameras so Palestinian activists could raise h*ll under the radar. Did they cave? We asked; no response.”
WOW! pic.twitter.com/F7cr7D7zzx
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) December 18, 2025
🚨 The Providence police press conference ended with a latino Rhode Island radio host accusing them of deliberately removing security cameras at Brown because of their sanctuary city law so that it wouldn't record illegal aliens. pic.twitter.com/wgHlBaFMKZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 17, 2025
Unfortunately, this is just one of many questions that remain unanswered.
Watters noted that during the afternoon press conference, the Providence Police Department could not even tell reporters how many students were inside the room where the shooting occurred. Perez said they were trying to “get the roster” from Brown officials. The school’s provost explained that the reason for the delay was that it had been a study session rather than an exam.
This is important because each one of those students was a witness who could provide investigators with important leads in the case. For example, it’s been reported that the gunman shouted something during his rampage. Some allege he yelled, “allahu akbar.” If true, those words could point to the killer’s motive. The public has a right to know this information.
According to Watters, one eyewitness recalled seeing 20 students hiding behind desks, but the New York Times reported there were as many as 60 witnesses. How many are there, and why haven’t they all been interviewed by the PPD?
🚨BREAKING: DEI Providence Police Chief reveals that 5-days after the Brown University mass shooting with a killer on the loose and they have not interviewed the student eye-witnesses for a description of the shooter.
Just a spectacular display of incompetence. pic.twitter.com/CTRuuA5jL4
— Dapper Detective (@Dapper_Det) December 17, 2025
Minutes after the attack, a video showed the suspect walking by a police cruiser. Because the car’s lights were on, a reporter asked if that also meant its dash camera was activated and may have captured images of the person of interest. Perez replied, “So, that was a Brown Police cruiser and I’m not sure if they have cameras in their cruisers.” He looks to his colleagues to see if they know.
Watters’ team was quickly able to determine that Brown University campus police cruisers do not have dash cams. He was shocked that one of the richest universities in the U.S. doesn’t put dash cams in police vehicles, something he said the poorest counties in the country put in their patrol cars.
Perez told reporters on Wednesday that police have “found physical evidence,” but refused to elaborate.
Watters reported that Brown claims to have video from inside the room, but they have not released it. They insist that the suspect does not appear in the footage. He said officials won’t even tell us “how long the shooter was in the room” or “how long it took police to respond to the scene.”
The building did not require students to swipe an ID card to enter, nor was there a security guard posted at the entrance.
Prior to becoming the head of Brown’s campus police, Rodney Chatman, was hired to lead the security team at the University of Utah. He was suspended shortly after he was hired because “he didn’t have the proper credentials.” He was asked to resign or be fired. He resigned.
So why did Brown hire this man? Maybe because he is allegedly very woke. Watters reported that Chatman once said, “Communities don’t want policing done to them.”
Watters told viewers:
Right before this shooting, Brown’s police union issued a vote of no confidence in Chief Rodney. The chief’s own men accused Rodney of endangering officers and creating a toxic workplace culture.
Watters also addressed Perez, who appears to be as woke as Chatman and believes that diversity in the ranks is essential. ‘It’s too white.’
“Meanwhile,” Watters adds, “the police chief could be compromised. It turns out the chief’s nephew was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for running one of the largest fentanyl rings in Rhode Island.”
Asked for comment, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had some harsh words for critics of the investigation. “For people who have no idea of what they’re talking about to offer their stupid and ill-informed views about what happened all over the internet. So I would please, just from a law enforcement perspective, ask anyone who sees this to just shut up.” Nice, huh?
🚨 BREAKING: Providence PD have ZERO CLUE how many STUDENTS were INSIDE of the AUDITORIUM during the SHOOTING… they STILL don’t have a VICTIM’S LIST🚨
These SO-CALLED “Investigators” DON’T EVEN know HOW LONG the SHOOTER was INSIDE the ROOM… or how LONG HIS GUN WAS! 🤦
The… pic.twitter.com/i3ZXIA8Tt1
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) December 18, 2025
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Comments
I’d call them Keystone Kops but that would be slandering the Keystone Kops. What a bunch of crap from the top on down. No wonder Whitehouse gets elected every time despite being a compromised racist tool. What a group of losers.
Can one slander fictional characters?
The law says one can’t even slander the dead, and those are real people; and considering how long ago the Keystone cops were, if they were real they’d be dead by now anyway, so they couldn’t be slandered.
The Keystone Cops are timeless.
They are also, unfortunately, legion.
So’s Sherlock Holmes, but he can’t be slandered. And if he were real, he’d be long dead by now.
“Can one slander fictional characters?”
Ask Disney.
The eerie similarities with the Jonbenet Ramsey case are too striking to ignore.
Apparently the smallest State is fond of the smallest characters, and I’m not just referring to stature
Smallest state is Delaware but your observation is equally applicable to both states,
You might want to re-evaluate that lack of education you think is serving you well.
Rhode Island: 1,045 square miles (2,707 square kilometers)
Rhode Island is only 41 miles in length and 20 miles wide (66 x 22 kilometers).
Rhode Island has over 384 miles (618 kilometers) of shoreline.
The highest point is Jerimoth Hill in Foster at 812 feet (247.5 meters).
2. Delaware: 1,954 square miles (5,061 square kilometers)
Delaware is 96 miles (154 kilometers) in length. At its thinnest point, it is only 9 miles (14 kilometers) wide.
Delaware has 381 miles of coastline.
The highest point is Ebright Azimuth at 447 feet (136 meters).
Wyoming has the smallest population.
Always though it was Delaware for some reason,
BTW: Your handle is very appropriate. There is no need to be rude unless you’re a complete and utter ass,
I will remember this. Our county in MT has an area between that of RI and DE in size. Both states have (predictably liberal) US Senators. We don’t even have our own NT state Senator any more.
Sorry, you’re just wrong.
Pretty sure that’s Rhode Island b/c when I got ‘Shanghaied’ from Germany to El Paso the folks snatching people up involuntarily wouldn’t shut up about how the FT Bliss installation was larger than the smallest State, RI.
Hell, the service area of our local high-school is larger than the land area of RI.
And what is even worse is those progressive evil doers get 2 senators.
Rhode Island has been corrupt for a very long time. They were having problems with their bridges 40 years ago and still are — the Feds are currently investigating the mess surrounding the “Washington Bridge.”
Asked for comment, Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had some harsh words for critics of the investigation. “For people who have no idea of what they’re talking about to offer their stupid and ill-informed views about what happened all over the internet. So I would please, just from a law enforcement perspective, ask anyone who sees this to just shut up.”
If only he would follow his own advice. But then he would never say anything, which most likely many of his constituents (of course not those who voted for him) would appreciate.
You have no idea.
He’s an embarrassment to the state.
This from the man I believe mentioned fart jokes while questioning kavanaugh during his vetting for the Supreme Court.
I have read that there is a person whose every mention has been erased from the university’s websites. Between the camera issue and that I would not be surprised if he is the guilty party if he has already fled the country.
Say his name: Mustapha Kharbouch.
Couldn’t remember his name at the time I posted (was at tire shop getting a nail removed and tire patched).
“So I would please, just from a law enforcement perspective, ask anyone who sees this to just shut up.”
Sheldon Whitehouse shouldn’t be throwing stones inside of a greenhouse. He hasn’t exactly shown himself to be an intellectual superhero.
It’s tragically ironic that in disabling/removing cameras it appears the university bowed to the demands of the cohort that most needed surveillance.
It’s clear that a substantial lawsuit is in order here, not just to provide justice for the victims but also to shine a light on the malfeasance of the university and the city.
“n disabling/removing cameras it appears the university bowed to the demands of the cohort that most needed surveillance.”
As soon as I learned that the Epstein wardens were working at Brown, I knew something was up.
As far as I can see, there is no investigation, just a lot of ass covering. Tracking down the students from the study session and interviewing as many as possible in the first 24 hours is a priority. You wait longer than that and their recollections can be tainted by media coverage and student gossip. Not intentionally, but that’s how the human mind works. You incorporate things you’ve heard and seen after the fact into your “memory” of an event.
Why were they even allowed out of the room without the authorities first taking all their names?
Well, they should have been moved to other rooms and then interviewed. Get them away from the scene for the sake of evidence AND so they’re not forced to look at it longer than necessary.
Watching those videos, it looks like they all booked it for safer hideouts long before the cops even showed up. I know I would have.
Stunning not to have completed interviews five days later, with a killer out free on the streets, and no “known” identity or description. That should have been done in the first several hours.
Generally, one should not attribute to malic what can be explained by incompetence, but at this point, the only logical conclusion is they don’t want to know the answers to the questions.
https://x.com/DougMackeyCase/status/2000822876270887133
If one of the victims was targeted, and if she was targeted in an unscheduled, informal study session, how did the killer know she was there? Did someone at the study, or otherwise in the building, communicate this to the killer? All this talk of security cameras may be a red herring. It could be just a coincidence that the killer struck his target at a place with inadequate camera coverage. It’s at least more important to ask (and answer) the question, “How did the killer know the whereabouts of his target with such obvious specificity?”
After writing the above, it has struck me – maybe the killer was stalking her. Have they looked at security camera videos tracking the victim to see if she was being followed?
She was a 19 year old college student.
She probably TOLD EVERYONE she was going to be there — facebook, twitter, etc.
Now if she was trying to organize a Turning Point campus chapter, and wanted it to be separate of the College Republicans, meeting people after the study session is a tactic I would have used — and I’ve done this sort of thing in the past.
Meet me in the big lecture hall after the event is a tactic when you need to get physical on-paper signatures from people — and she would have needed nine other than hers IF she was trying to start a TPUSA chapter.
I am not saying she was, only that I heard a rumor she was. Regardless of that, the odds of a 19-year-old college student neither mentioning this study session or that she was in this (popular) class?
And this was a SCHEDULED review session — one of the five offered (I believe) — it was run by an undergrad TA instead of the (Jewish) professor, as is customary.
Attendance is optional but you’re a damn fool not to go — and as I suggested above, I suspect she announced which one she would be going to.
The thing to understand is that if this was a “school shooting” (and I don’t think it was), those are so rare that you are more likely to be hit by lightning.
If it’s a real CS class, and you understand the subject matter, these review sessions are usually pretty stupid. I tried it once, and knew more than the TA did.
Of course, that shouldn’t be surprising. TAs are usually grad students, doing the work to get a stipend, because their advisor didn’t have funding to pay them as RAs. Daughter TAed Thermodynamics her first semester in grad school, while taking the grad level class at the same time. Second time was as a favor to her advisor and his wife, team teaching that class together. By then, she knew it, having used it in her PhD research for 4 years by then.
There was a camera in the room and why we don’t have access to it is ridiculous. They are hiding something
“Watters reported that Brown claims to have video from inside the room, but they have not released it. They insist that the suspect does not appear in the footage. He said officials won’t even tell us “how long the shooter was in the room” or “how long it took police to respond to the scene.”“
Yup.
“After five days, officials have no idea “who the shooter is, where he is, or what he looks like,” he said.”
Now the word is that they know ALL that stuff… they just can’t tell us.
It’s like Schoedinger’s Box, except for the third possibility that there isn’t really any cat.
If it was a university camera, you are presuming that it was working — I’m not.
Colleges *buy* stuff and then never test it, and definitely never maintain it.
And then somehow are surprised that they don’t work. It’s kinda like a car will stop working if you don’t keep putting gasoline into the tank…
I’ve seen this with emergency lights — a 10,000 seat arena pitch black because no one ever bothered to test the switch that kicks over from utility power to generator started — the generator started but the switch didn’t kick over and it either wasn’t possible to trip it manually or no one there knew how to — so they evacuated 10,000 people by the lights of TV cameras.
What I want are the recordings — at least half the kids there had to have been recording the session with their cell phones. Well, there would be 30-50 recordings of whatever the perp shouted.
But don’t ever underestimate the incompetence of a university administrator.
In the discussion of reported Leftist demands in August that the cameras on campus be removed/turned off in the name of “protecting free speech” there is another bit of possible data. Granting as a first principle that what one sees online needs to be confirmed, reconfirmed, and then confirmed again as political fraud is the heartbeat of the internet . . . on another fairly reputable site [which does NOT exempt it from those confirmations] there were indications that at least at one time there may have been camera(s) in what was purported to be the classroom attacked. There are pictures from what is supposed to be an unknown period before the attack showing it full of students. IF [and it is very much an if dependent on the factors mentioned above] there were camera(s) there before, it reinforces the possibility that they were removed/shut off as described at the top of this post. Which opens ranges of investigative possibilities. I would also note my agreement with earlier comments that the removal of security camera(s) gives whoever carries Brown’s insurance policies an excellent excuse to retroactively void all coverage of the University.
Subotai Bahadur
And they could be cameras that worked with the analog system they had back in the ’90s and might even still have power going to them, but haven’t worked in 20 years.
OR they were turned off so that neither Congress nor ED could demand to see them — so that they could lie about disruptive protests not happening. Or some mid-level admin could have cut the cable.
Remember. They are a Sanctuary university. That means that the right of Illegals to be here legally are more important than the students for safety.
I would prefer the deportation of radical students rather than the implementation of totalitarian surveillance.
Surveillance is not totalitarian unless it is used for such purposes.
Surveillance is forever, in that anytime after an event, anyone can review the material, including people not as “trustworthy” as the people who set it up.
Remember the lesson of the Brady firearms instant check (NICS) — legislation demanded that records of “no problem found” purchase be scrubbed, but failed to specify a deadline. Janet Reno, found violating that, huffed that indefinite backup tapes were required for all her LE systems.
Subsequent Tiahrt amendments mandate a 24 hour period. We all KNOW those are violated regularly, probably permanently.
Brown University should have a data retention policy that would dictate how long data like camera footage should and must be retained.
It could get pricey to keep things forever. The retention time length overall (not just video feeds) should depend on regulations and laws (Financial, PII, PHI, etc)
Sadly, I’ve seen it being used for that — colleges only manage to see the conservative students breaking the rules…
Surveillance will always eventually be used for totalitarian purposes.
Watch the “Person of Interest” TV series on Prime.
“So would I, nor so would any man.”
But Brown in its woke wisdom chose to do exactly the opposite, without asking us.
Now it can suffer the slings and arrows of well-deserved fortune.
Is this gonna be “The Las Vegas Shooting, 2025 Edition”?
The last time no cameras worked the left had something to hide.
“Who let this Zapruder guy show up?”
Import the Third World, become the Third World.
I hope we have wait it takes to turn things around, but I fear we don’t. I also hate the things we will have to do to bring civilization back to our nation.
lefty who loves violence and proves it by their coddling of the criminals and their agendas are *more* guilty than an act of “gun” violence
the taking down of the lefty agenda is imperative for a civilized society to exist
Brown has exposed themselves to massive lawsuits if they caved to a letter from a left wing group about the cameras. That would explain everyone acting the way they are. The Department of Education should initiate an investigation of Brown for not properly following their own security protocols. If they can’t protect their students they should not receive one dime from the Federal Government for anything.
Leaving a quadrant of their perimeter/grounds without any effective video surveillance (the physics and engineering buildings at that) seems pretty reckless, irresponsible no matter how it occurred. Especially since they didn’t put campus security over there on a continuous basis to cover the gap.
Why did the Communists do anything? To protect criminals
Notice how these shootings almost always occur in “gun-free” zones, where nobody can shoot back?
My own college has “gun-free zone” signs everywhere, and I ask them if they think a murderous maniac is going to see the sign and think, “Oh, crap! I can’t take my gun in there, so I guess I can’t murder anybody.”
Brown University Received a Letter from 34 Human Rights Groups in August Requesting They Disable Their CCTV System
Didn’t the Brown U students *demand* barring the local PD from campus AND to DeFund the Campus PD just a couple years ago?
I did a Google & AI (not a fan!) and got only a milquetoast comment that the admin “got the request” but didn’t take any particular action … or some such tripe. (Am I getting gaslighted … again?)
That tune sure changed last week when they were pleading for a “good guy with a gun” to show up … and complained they were not fast enough!
Didn’t the Brown U students *demand* barring the local PD from campus AND to DeFund the Campus PD just a couple years ago?
I did a Google & AI (not a fan!) and got only a milquetoast comment that the admin “got the request” but didn’t take any particular action … or some such tripe. (Am I getting gaslighted … again?)
That tune sure changed last week when they were pleading for a “good guy with a gun” to show up … and complained they were not fast enough!
Why is everyone so pro-camera? Yeah, it helps in situations like this but I’d prefer not to be surveilled without my knowledge or permission.
GoPros on cops have been great and well worth whatever they cost.