He withdrew from Brown’s PhD program some years ago. Whatever reason for the withdrawal, his life certainly wasn’t what he had wished. I agree with your speculation.
Perhaps of note is that the murdered MIT professor had a wife and kids and was very popular. He also had “smart guy” good looks, whereas the Brown shooter was homely.
Sounds like a novel about two school friends and their divergent lives. Nabokov has lots of jealous assassins in his book. (His father was assassinated.)
The MIT shooting was very targeted, so the Brown shooting was likely targeted as well, even though several students were shot. Was the Alabama Republican girl the principal target at Brown?? Was she the only one who was shot more than once? Hopefully there will be some info or evidence to shed light on the target there.
Consider what I found by asking Google what building the Brown University shooting took place in...
"Officials were questioned about the lack of sufficient security cameras in the Barus & Holley engineering and *physics* building ..."
I know the students gathered there were in some econ class taught by a Jewish Professor but IIRC it was a final exam review/study session, not a regular class session. I would not be surprised if the shooter just assumed that since it was the physics building that all the classes meeting there would be physics related. Since he'd been a student at Brown, though not for a few years, he may have simply targeted the building he was most familiar with.
That still doesn't explain why he shot the girl. The suicide is also hard to believe. No note, manifesto or anything and he kills himself. Not buying it.
Queer Palestinian activists talk big, lots of murderous words. But I can’t imagine them shooting anyone. It’s very difficult for regular people to think about violence. Their minds seem to slip away from it.
I suspect the PsTB at Brown where crapping stones when they figured out the VP of the Campus Republicans was killed. I suspect their emails and Slack channels are full of people making threats of violence against her.
Yes, but only where violence carries a high likelihood of serious cost. I spent a Sunday service at a church where nearly every male in attendance is a drone operator.
They were extremely pleasant normies.
See also the difference between how people speak to each other in public vs private.
Recently some piece of garbage left a series of incoherent hate messages under my YouTube videos (he is a wealthy jewish chauvinist while I am only ⅓ of those). This he did without knowing that his legal name was discernible behind his youtube nom de guerre.
Under his own name - ar the same time! - he wrote me very sweet and supportive emails...
People think about violence plenty, they are just too cowardly to risk engaging it.
P.S. Yes, I wrote the motherfucker.
He also accidentally outted himself as one of the super duper very very bad Jews who tried to undo the lesson of my life in Egypt (that "antisemitism" is handwaving nonsense and that an openly proud Rabbi, who lectured in support of Israel worldwide had zero problems with Egyptians) by using his wealth and connections to get out own American government to sick the super confused Egyptian authorities against me in the hope that they would kill me, as policemen in my city of Alexandria have done before.
Of course I am fine and that little murderer wannabbee failed. To your original point however, "regular people" will gladly engage in violence if it's free.
If you give them enough leash, they'll do it. That guy who shot Kirk is very probably a Pro-Palestinian. The guy who tried taking out Trump in August 2024 was probably too. Too bad we can't interview him about his political convictions, sic!
I was one of those who assumed that because the shooter targeted a class taught by a professor of Judaic studies, which apparently dealt with economics from a Jewish perspective, and because the shooting occurred on the first day of Hanukah that the shooter must necessarily have been motivated by some animus against Jews. I didn't carry that line of thought any further to target any particular group, since now so many have reason for such an animus.
I certainly didn't consider the warped thinking of some psycho who felt that his career as a brilliant physicist was thwarted by a conspiracy involving a building in Providence and a classmate from his time in Portugal.
The case reminds me of an incident that occurred between 1969 and 1970 in the Mathematics Department of the University of Pennsylvania. A thesis advisor noticed that one of his doctoral candidates had been ABD for an exceptionally long time and seemed to be morphing into a professional grad student. He gave the student one year to complete a dissertation and get his PhD or be forced to leave Penn without a degree. In desperation the student searched through a Russian Journal in his specialty and plagiarized an article. Apparently he reasoned that the journal was obscure enough that he wouldn't be caught.
Unfortunately for him, either the chair of the Math Department or his advisor -- I can't recall which -- subscribed to that journal and the plagiarism was quickly discovered. The student was immediately expelled from the program. This happened towards the end of 1969. In January or February of 1970 the student broke into a Math Department faculty meeting and shot the place up, killing one or two faculty and IIRC wounding several others. He then disappeared. His mummified body was discovered months later in some nook of the Math and Physics Building, where he'd secreted himself before committing suicide.
One conclusion one might draw from incidents like these is that, from a purely personal perspective, it's not a good idea to thwart the career plans of psycho, STEM grad students.
"Economics from a Jewish perspective"? Do you mean a course that discusses Marx or Freidman or *actual* "economics from a Jewish perspective, be it biblical means of determining value or religious law relating to damages, etc.
If you mean something like the latter example, please spill! That's an interesting subject of which I am myself a student (and perhaps teacher, though I would rather not be, because representating divine law is a tough matter to meet).
When I was at NYU, partly because of stories like this (and less murderous ones), they kicked out all math PhD students after 7 years, no matter what.
Sometimes, somebody would complete their doctorates elsewhere, but mostly, we ABDs would take a hint and do something else. (I left after my 6th year and became an actuary....others left earlier and became quants)
Why the official vagueness about what the Brown shooter shouted? “Something” is all we can know? If they had disclosed the words, or the language, or anything, it might have helped find and stop the guy before he got to MIT. Maybe he did shout “Allah Akbar,” but as misdirection or a dark joke…?
Incidentally, Providence and neighboring Fall River, Mass is the the center of the Portuguese-American community in the US. The shooter may have lived in the area and drifted in menial or blue collar work (there are lots of Portuguese restaurants and small businesses in the area) after his physics career never took off.
Or it's possible that the assassinated MIT physicist had stolen the identity of the shooter back when they were young in Portugal before embarking for the US, and achieved his career through the stolen identity and stolen valor, and the shooter had taken revenge for it. Now we'll never know since they're both dead and I imagine the case will be closed and the authorities won't investigate further.
If the MIT guy was the primary target, the one he possibly knew personally, why didn't he kill him first? The Brown shooting had much higher risk of death or capture.
Did the alleged killer first want to horrify the primary target, i.e. the MIT superProf, by shooting up his old department, thereby striking a death blow against the field of physics? Or was his primary anger directed against Brown for failing him, maybe, and his fury against the MIT prof was secondary?
These conjectures don't make much sense. Like you say, you'd think he'd kill the guy he hated first, straight up, and then go down to Brown and go out in a blaze of self-immolating glory.
But then I'm not a mass killer, nor do I aspire to be one, so I probably don't think like one.
The only thing I have to offer in this conversation is that you should check out the movie “Mystic Pizza”, the movie that started Julia Robert’s career and is about the Portuguese in Providence.
Call me crazy, but I've learned to trust Sailer's Law of Mass Shootings.
He withdrew from Brown’s PhD program some years ago. Whatever reason for the withdrawal, his life certainly wasn’t what he had wished. I agree with your speculation.
Perhaps of note is that the murdered MIT professor had a wife and kids and was very popular. He also had “smart guy” good looks, whereas the Brown shooter was homely.
Sounds like a novel about two school friends and their divergent lives. Nabokov has lots of jealous assassins in his book. (His father was assassinated.)
Imagine writing novels like that to work out your feelings around your father dying like that. Novelist is a lonely job.
The MIT shooting was very targeted, so the Brown shooting was likely targeted as well, even though several students were shot. Was the Alabama Republican girl the principal target at Brown?? Was she the only one who was shot more than once? Hopefully there will be some info or evidence to shed light on the target there.
Consider what I found by asking Google what building the Brown University shooting took place in...
"Officials were questioned about the lack of sufficient security cameras in the Barus & Holley engineering and *physics* building ..."
I know the students gathered there were in some econ class taught by a Jewish Professor but IIRC it was a final exam review/study session, not a regular class session. I would not be surprised if the shooter just assumed that since it was the physics building that all the classes meeting there would be physics related. Since he'd been a student at Brown, though not for a few years, he may have simply targeted the building he was most familiar with.
That still doesn't explain why he shot the girl. The suicide is also hard to believe. No note, manifesto or anything and he kills himself. Not buying it.
He shot about 20 people at Brown and 2 of them died.
Queer Palestinian activists talk big, lots of murderous words. But I can’t imagine them shooting anyone. It’s very difficult for regular people to think about violence. Their minds seem to slip away from it.
I suspect the PsTB at Brown where crapping stones when they figured out the VP of the Campus Republicans was killed. I suspect their emails and Slack channels are full of people making threats of violence against her.
Yes, but only where violence carries a high likelihood of serious cost. I spent a Sunday service at a church where nearly every male in attendance is a drone operator.
They were extremely pleasant normies.
See also the difference between how people speak to each other in public vs private.
Recently some piece of garbage left a series of incoherent hate messages under my YouTube videos (he is a wealthy jewish chauvinist while I am only ⅓ of those). This he did without knowing that his legal name was discernible behind his youtube nom de guerre.
Under his own name - ar the same time! - he wrote me very sweet and supportive emails...
People think about violence plenty, they are just too cowardly to risk engaging it.
P.S. Yes, I wrote the motherfucker.
He also accidentally outted himself as one of the super duper very very bad Jews who tried to undo the lesson of my life in Egypt (that "antisemitism" is handwaving nonsense and that an openly proud Rabbi, who lectured in support of Israel worldwide had zero problems with Egyptians) by using his wealth and connections to get out own American government to sick the super confused Egyptian authorities against me in the hope that they would kill me, as policemen in my city of Alexandria have done before.
Of course I am fine and that little murderer wannabbee failed. To your original point however, "regular people" will gladly engage in violence if it's free.
Story here →
https://ydydy.substack.com/p/nobel-prize-winning-meeting-live
If you give them enough leash, they'll do it. That guy who shot Kirk is very probably a Pro-Palestinian. The guy who tried taking out Trump in August 2024 was probably too. Too bad we can't interview him about his political convictions, sic!
It's still too early and there isn't enough information.
I was one of those who assumed that because the shooter targeted a class taught by a professor of Judaic studies, which apparently dealt with economics from a Jewish perspective, and because the shooting occurred on the first day of Hanukah that the shooter must necessarily have been motivated by some animus against Jews. I didn't carry that line of thought any further to target any particular group, since now so many have reason for such an animus.
I certainly didn't consider the warped thinking of some psycho who felt that his career as a brilliant physicist was thwarted by a conspiracy involving a building in Providence and a classmate from his time in Portugal.
The case reminds me of an incident that occurred between 1969 and 1970 in the Mathematics Department of the University of Pennsylvania. A thesis advisor noticed that one of his doctoral candidates had been ABD for an exceptionally long time and seemed to be morphing into a professional grad student. He gave the student one year to complete a dissertation and get his PhD or be forced to leave Penn without a degree. In desperation the student searched through a Russian Journal in his specialty and plagiarized an article. Apparently he reasoned that the journal was obscure enough that he wouldn't be caught.
Unfortunately for him, either the chair of the Math Department or his advisor -- I can't recall which -- subscribed to that journal and the plagiarism was quickly discovered. The student was immediately expelled from the program. This happened towards the end of 1969. In January or February of 1970 the student broke into a Math Department faculty meeting and shot the place up, killing one or two faculty and IIRC wounding several others. He then disappeared. His mummified body was discovered months later in some nook of the Math and Physics Building, where he'd secreted himself before committing suicide.
One conclusion one might draw from incidents like these is that, from a purely personal perspective, it's not a good idea to thwart the career plans of psycho, STEM grad students.
"Economics from a Jewish perspective"? Do you mean a course that discusses Marx or Freidman or *actual* "economics from a Jewish perspective, be it biblical means of determining value or religious law relating to damages, etc.
If you mean something like the latter example, please spill! That's an interesting subject of which I am myself a student (and perhaps teacher, though I would rather not be, because representating divine law is a tough matter to meet).
When I was at NYU, partly because of stories like this (and less murderous ones), they kicked out all math PhD students after 7 years, no matter what.
Sometimes, somebody would complete their doctorates elsewhere, but mostly, we ABDs would take a hint and do something else. (I left after my 6th year and became an actuary....others left earlier and became quants)
It's a good policy.
Why the official vagueness about what the Brown shooter shouted? “Something” is all we can know? If they had disclosed the words, or the language, or anything, it might have helped find and stop the guy before he got to MIT. Maybe he did shout “Allah Akbar,” but as misdirection or a dark joke…?
I think of Theodore Streleski.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Karel_de_Leeuw#:~:text=Theodore%20Landon%20%22Ted%22%20Streleski%20(born,hammer%20on%20August%2018%2C%201978.
Incidentally, Providence and neighboring Fall River, Mass is the the center of the Portuguese-American community in the US. The shooter may have lived in the area and drifted in menial or blue collar work (there are lots of Portuguese restaurants and small businesses in the area) after his physics career never took off.
Or it's possible that the assassinated MIT physicist had stolen the identity of the shooter back when they were young in Portugal before embarking for the US, and achieved his career through the stolen identity and stolen valor, and the shooter had taken revenge for it. Now we'll never know since they're both dead and I imagine the case will be closed and the authorities won't investigate further.
You’ve got a filmscript there, get it registered now!
If the MIT guy was the primary target, the one he possibly knew personally, why didn't he kill him first? The Brown shooting had much higher risk of death or capture.
That's a great question.
Did the alleged killer first want to horrify the primary target, i.e. the MIT superProf, by shooting up his old department, thereby striking a death blow against the field of physics? Or was his primary anger directed against Brown for failing him, maybe, and his fury against the MIT prof was secondary?
These conjectures don't make much sense. Like you say, you'd think he'd kill the guy he hated first, straight up, and then go down to Brown and go out in a blaze of self-immolating glory.
But then I'm not a mass killer, nor do I aspire to be one, so I probably don't think like one.
Anyway, it's a very strange case indeed.
OK, I get the MIT nuclear physicist from Portugal angle. Still, this raises the question, why did he shoot up a small class at Brown's?
The only thing I have to offer in this conversation is that you should check out the movie “Mystic Pizza”, the movie that started Julia Robert’s career and is about the Portuguese in Providence.
A passionate people if you go by the movie.