Lisi said he had seen a man matching the description and photos of the suspect, shared by the police, in and around Brown\u2019s Barus and Holley building about 10 times beginning in early November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew there was something off with him,\u201d Lisi said.<\/p>\n
Twice, Lisi said, he told a campus security guard about a suspicious person in the engineering and physics building.<\/p>\n
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Event Staffing Services, a contractor that works at Brown events, confirmed a custodian told one of its employees about a suspicious person in the building in December, but said it doesn\u2019t investigate reports like that.<\/p>\n
Lisi said that, in mid-November, he told someone, who he believed was an ESS staff member working as a security guard, that he had seen a man \u201ccircling the hallways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown officials didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
However, according to a letter to the Brown community Monday, university president Christina H. Paxson outlined three immediate actions Brown plans to take after the shooting, including forming a rapid response team that is prioritizing immediate safety and security measures to ensure a secure campus during Brown\u2019s winter break and ahead of its Spring 2026 semester.<\/p>\n
Brown will commission an external After-Action Review, which will include a complete assessment and evaluation of campus safety in the period leading up to the tragedy, the preparedness and response on the date of the shooting, and the emergency management response in the aftermath.<\/p>\n
Paxson also announced that Campus Police Chief Rodney Chatman was placed on leave and replaced by Hugh T. Clements Jr., the former longtime Providence police chief, to lead the school\u2019s public safety operations.<\/p>\n
During the interview, Lisi said he continued seeing the man peering into classrooms and hanging around outside Room 166 in particular.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was someone trying to steal something,\u201d Lisi said. \u201cEvery time he saw me, I think he thought I was security, because he would always walk away.\u201d <\/p>\n
It was in Room 166 that the suspect, identified by police as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente<\/a>, allegedly opened fire, killing two people \u2014 students Ella Cook<\/a> and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov<\/a> \u2014 and injuring nine others.<\/p>\n Police also linked him to the murder two days later of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro<\/a> in Brookline.<\/p>\n Lisi said his suspicions about the man in the building grew in early December. Once, Lisi said, he decided to follow the man after seeing him in a parking lot.<\/p>\n When the man saw him, Lisi said, the man started walking away quickly and ducked into the bathroom.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Something\u2019s off with this guy, so I gotta say something,\u2019\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n He flagged down the same staff member again. According to Lisi, the person didn\u2019t investigate. ESS, the private contractor, said it doesn\u2019t investigate reports and focuses narrowly on overseeing events, including on-campus gatherings and sports games.<\/p>\n Lisi said he didn\u2019t contact police either, believing he had flagged the issue appropriately, and simply went back to his custodial work.<\/p>\n Providence police confirmed Lisi told them after the shootings that he had earlier alerted a security guard.<\/p>\n ESS said its role on campus does not include investigating reports of suspicious people or other similar concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have nothing to do with watching buildings,\u201d said David Madonna, ESS\u2019s president, in an interview Monday. \u201cWhenever there\u2019s an event at Brown, they hire us to do ID check and capacity counts in their rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n Madonna said he spoke with a staffer who recalled talking with a custodian about a suspicious person in the building in early December. He said he didn\u2019t know of any similar reports from November.<\/p>\n Either way, Madonna said the company\u2019s staff do not perform the duties of a security guard, they don\u2019t carry any weapons, and that when public safety issues arise, they don\u2019t typically call campus police but will tell Brown staff to do so. He said that\u2019s what his staff member did that day in December, as well.<\/p>\n Lisi, on Monday, said he believed he was speaking to security guards when he reported someone acting strangely, and that the patchwork of third-party firms at Brown can be confusing. He said he couldn\u2019t remember if the staffer told him to call the police.<\/p>\n Lisi was not the only person to have gotten a glimpse of the alleged assailant before the mass shooting. <\/p>\n A man identified by police only as \u201cJohn\u201d also told police he had seen the suspect acting suspiciously near the building in the days leading up to the attack and at one point in the hours before the shooting had allegedly chased him on foot.<\/p>\n Police say that tip, first flagged on the social media site Reddit<\/a>, led them to a rental car, and ultimately to New Hampshire, where the suspect was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.<\/p>\n There have been calls for \u201cJohn,\u201d the Reddit user, to be given the promised $50,000 reward offered by the FBI.<\/p>\n On Dec. 13, when Lisi got an alert about a shooter on campus sent to members of the Brown community, he said he immediately thought of the suspicious man he\u2019d seen in the building.<\/p>\n \u201cI told my friend, \u2018I hope it\u2019s not the guy I\u2019ve been seeing. I hope it\u2019s not,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Then he saw images of the suspect, he said. He recognized him right away.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was him because I could tell by the walk,\u201d he said. \u201cHe had a pretty distinctive walk.\u201d<\/p>\n Lisi said he also recognized the jacket and dark clothing he wore. The only difference was that he remembered seeing him in a blue face mask, not a black one.<\/p>\n He called a tip line that night and told police to look for security footage on two days in particular, when he was certain he had seen him. Police met with him two days later, he said. <\/p>\n Two days later, on Monday night, police called and asked to meet with him, and they spoke in a Home Depot parking lot, he said. <\/p>\n In an affidavit, police said they spoke with a man, who they later confirmed is Lisi, who said he had run-ins with a man matching the shooting suspect\u2019s description.<\/p>\n Police also confirmed that, at the time, Lisi told them he had previously flagged the suspicious person to campus security personnel.<\/p>\n Lisi said he contacted police long before the FBI began offering a reward for information connected to the case, and said he is interested in student safety, not the money.<\/p>\n \u201cI just did it for the safety of the students. That\u2019s primarily what I care about,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s about making sure that they learn from this and that it doesn\u2019t happen again.<\/p>\n Lisi said he hopes the tragedy leads to new safety restrictions in buildings like that one, which he described as \u201ca free-for-all\u201d where \u201canybody could just come in.\u201d<\/p>\n Lisi said he is close with people who work and study in the building. One, a PhD student named Alec McCall, said Lisi has a friendly presence and has always been concerned about the welfare of students.<\/p>\n \u201cHe just cares about everyone,\u201d McCall said. <\/p>\n Lisi said it still eats at him that he repeatedly crossed paths with an alleged shooter who had been lurking in the hallways undetected for weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cI just wish there was something I could have done,\u201d Lisi said.<\/p>\n Steph Machado and Alexa Gagosz of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him @SpencerBuell<\/a>.<\/p>\n