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The Real Hero of the Brown University Shooting Is Getting the Shaft

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  Dec 21, 2025
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I’m not the only one. Everyone seems to think the self-congratulations given by Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and others were unseemly. You idiots didn’t do anything. Brett, you whined about being tired. Yeah, at the time, there was an armed man at large who was a threat to the public. That’s the job, you idiot. The police chief, I’ll give some leeway since he was dealing with systemic incompetence by Brown University, which was attacked by Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national, on December 13. There is a hero in this story, but it’s not the mayor, the police chief, the FBI, or the state attorney general. 

It's a homeless man named “John,” who lived in the basement of the engineering building that Valente targeted. He opened fire during a study session, killing two and wounding nine others. This homeless individual, reportedly an alumnus of Brown, like the shooter, confronted Valente, got his description, including that of this rental car, a Nissan Sentra, and its tags. He posted this information on Reddit, which cracked the case wide open since Valente was exceptional at covering his tracks, using a Google phone, reportedly using European SIM cards, and other applications that made tracking impossible. He also switched license plates between the time of the university attack and the killing of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a former classmate of Valente, in Brookline, Massachusetts.  

He knew how to detect surveillance and facial recognition. After killing Loureiro on December 15, Valente drove to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where he previously rented a unit, and committed suicide a day later. 

It was “John” who should be congratulated. Smiley and colleagues’ incompetence deserves to be mocked and further grilled. They initially claimed that the public was safe while Valente was still on the run. Armed man running wild is a plus in the public safety analysis—not so fast, Jack. University President Christina Paxson needs to stop talking forever, especially since she might have lied about why the engineering building was so easily accessible. She claimed it was open for finals, whereas a student claimed the building is always open. Hence, why “John” can shack up in the basement. 

Smiley and others were given a standing ovation at a Friars basketball game. It’s truly amazing stuff—the acceptance and thanks from people who did nothing to solve this case. They did show how Democrat-run Rhode Island is incapable of handling such incidents: 

Absolute disgrace to ignore “John” like this, the real hero who solved the Brown University and MIT shootings.