Eva Erickson, a Ph.D. student at Brown, said she was working in the Barus & Holley building yesterday and left mere minutes before the shooting. 

“My office is in that building, and I walk directly through the area where those classrooms were to leave. I walked right through there what would have been probably like five minutes before the shooting took place,” she recalled. 

From there she went to the gym on campus and got a frantic call from one of her lab mates informing her there was an active shooter. Then she got an alert on her phone, and the campus went into lockdown. 

“They turned out all the lights, and everyone was just calling their parents to tell them they were OK,” Erickson said. She and others in the gym remained in lockdown from 4:22 p.m. to 9 p.m., when they were moved to another building, where they were patted down and searched. She was allowed to leave at 1:30 a.m. 

Erickson said that she did not know the person of interest in the shooting and that none of the peers she knows were in that classroom.

She said the building was somewhat busy yesterday, with some students taking finals. Some doors at the building require a university ID swipe, but sometimes the doors are unlocked, she said. 

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said yesterday that the outer doors were unlocked because exams were taking place.

Today there is caution tape around the Barus & Holley building, and a police presence inside.

“I just felt such deep sadness, and just feeling even though I didn’t know the victims, even though everyone I know is safe, just the thoughts of, like, that could have been me, that could have been anyone that I’m friends with. Could have been a student who is in my class that I TA. It just really, really hit me driving by that building,” she said. 

She called for change, saying: “I never in a million years would have thought that this would happen to my school, to my community, and it did, and it could happen to anyone’s school, it could happen to anyone’s child, to anyone’s friend, and that’s really scary. So something needs to change in our country.”