A Brown University custodian just dropped a bombshell by claiming he flagged the man who murdered two students to the authorities multiple times before the deadly shooting occurred.
Derek Lisi has worked at Brown University in Rhode Island for 15 years, and if he is telling the truth, the horrible and tragic shooting that cost the lives of two young students and injured multiple others could have been avoided. Lisi said in comments that The Boston Globe published that he saw a man walking through the hallways, looking into classrooms, and trying to avoid being seen by suddenly darting into a bathroom — all weeks before the shooting. Lisi saw the suspicious man at least 10 times and notified the campus security at least twice, but it appears that nobody took the behavior seriously.
The deceased man accused of gunning down Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, also murdered MIT nuclear science and engineering professor Nuno F. Gomes Loureiro, according to Massachusetts authorities. Therefore, it seems two separate murders could have been avoided had authorities taken Lisi’s warnings seriously.
“I knew there was something off with him,” Lisi recalled of the man whom he saw casing the university building and whom he later recognized in photos of the accused shooter. “He’d been casing that place for weeks.”
Related: Confirmed: Brown University Shooter Killed MIT Professor
The Boston Globe detailed the circumstances:
Lisi said that, in mid-November, he told a security guard, who he believed worked for a private firm hired by the university, that he had seen a man “circling the hallways.” He said he wasn’t sure what the security guard did with the information.
Lisi said he continued seeing the man, who he said was peering into classrooms and hanging around outside Room 166 in particular.
“I thought it was someone trying to steal something,” Lisi said. “Every time he saw me, I think he thought I was security, because he would always walk away.” The second time the custodian told the security guard about the man was when he tried to follow the man to the parking lot, and the man went into a bathroom to avoid being confronted.
Lisi’s accusations come after a faculty member said she had seen a car matching the description of the shooter’s rental car driving slowly around campus ahead of the attack, according to The Boston Globe. A homeless man named John also thought the shooter was behaving suspiciously and flagged him for police, which enabled police to track down Neves-Valente, who they found dead.
When Lisi received a shooter alert, he told a friend, “I hope it’s not the guy I’ve been seeing. I hope it’s not.” When he saw photos and video of the suspect, Lisi said he knew his worst fears were confirmed. “I knew it was him because I could tell by the walk. He had a pretty distinctive walk.”
Lisi said he also recognized the jacket and dark clothing the man had been wearing on campus. The only difference was that he remembered seeing him in a blue face mask, not a black one.
He called the public tip line that night and told police to look for security footage of the man in the building on two days in particular, when he was certain he had seen him.
Police confirmed they did meet with Lisi and that he had previously flagged a suspicious individual to security. Lisi, who is friends with some of the university students and has long believed it was too easy to access the building where the shooting occurred, is still understandably angry that his information about the shooter was not taken seriously before students were killed.
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