The journey home from Brown University left me wondering

I was entering the freeway last week to return home to the Island from Brown University for the holidays as the news of a mass shooting first broke. It was Saturday, Dec. 13, and a horrific tragedy had taken place on my beloved campus of Brown University, where I am a senior. The shooter took the lives of two vibrant individuals and left nine others wounded. A tragedy, in the form of mass shootings, that seems to repeat itself across America constantly.

Brown University is a place where I uncovered my passions and made long-lasting connections with friends and professors. The tight-knit campus serves as a microcosm of cultural and academic diversity. A place where you can’t step out the door without seeing a familiar face. The university is composed of different pockets that enable students to find their community. Brown University has served as a second home and a first step off the Island for myself and multiple Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School alums.

The past few days have been a whirlwind marked by a wide range of emotions. The events first reached me through a text from my roommate, who was in a campus building at the time of the shooting. She said she believed there was an active shooter on campus. 

Immediately alarmed, my friend group responded with urgency, aiming to get more details from her. We were soon met with the first alert, of what would become many, from our university, confirming our biggest fear. The shooter had targeted our engineering building, Barus and Holley. This building was about a 10-minute walk from my home and served as a favorite spot on campus for the entire Brown community. My friends and I were in that building almost daily.

I spent the entire drive with my family toward Woods Hole frantically texting my friends to determine their whereabouts and safety. As we crossed the Bourne bridge, my friends and I all began to notice that one person had been unresponsive in the group chat since the shooting had begun. As we waited for his response, each minute felt like an eternity, contributing to a horrifying gut-wrenching feeling. Twenty minutes passed before we were able to confirm the safety of the unresponsive person in the group chat.

At one point, the shooter was rumored to be on the street where I lived with my roommates, who said they were left sitting in the dark, shivering in fear, clutching onto various weapons, and preparing for the worst.

Finally, I arrived at the Woods Hole Steamship Authority Terminal, eager to return home. My brother drove our car, and my mother and I ran up to the car ramp to meet him. We were in frantic emotional states, as I was hearing that up to 30 students were wounded. I had a heightened sense of urgency and needed to be in a safe space and get in touch with my loved ones. In a moment where I would’ve appreciated compassion, I was met with something else. Despite explaining the horrible tragedy taking place on my campus and expressing that my tickets were paid for, I was met with snide remarks, hostility, and doubt by multiple SSA employees. Massachusetts State Police officers called us antagonizing and physically stopped us from entering, at a time where I could barely process the events or breathe. I was once again reminded of a need for improved social-emotional training within the state police force. A belief that we could in some way be breaking procedure resulted in an egregious lack of care for shared humanity. The treatment we received from public-facing employees made an already devastating day worse, and left me in tears.

I share the above interaction at the Woods Hole terminal not to bash law enforcement officials or ferry line employees, but as a way to highlight that the apathy spreading across our country has laid the groundwork for us to become so desensitized by constant mass shootings. As years go by and more students are deprived of their youth by these senseless acts, it can become easy to focus on our daily lives rather than paying attention to the constant onslaught of violence. I am certain that I, and likely everyone, is guilty of this.

On Wednesday evening, I learned that a freshman representative for my club was shot while attending the economics class study session. The day before the tragedy took place, we had been together at a conference. She was the only executive board member who could make it, and I remember thinking how great it was that she had joined. We spent the drive back to campus talking about our least favorite classes this semester; she even mentioned economics.

She has the brightest light, and did not deserve to have the memory of her first semester at Brown marked by this tragic event. She should be at home, instead of recovering from gunshot wounds in a hospital bed.

For two students, Mia Tretta and Zoe Weissman, this was the second time they experienced a school shooting. This violence cannot continue to become ever-present in the lives of many. It is imperative for us to avoid abandoning our empathy. My fellow Brunonians did not deserve to have their lives cut short for simply getting an education. Do not allow Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzakov to become another statistic. I find myself yearning for a solution, a Band-Aid to ensure no more students reach the same fate. Stricter gun laws are a crucial step, but an American culture that has allowed these shootings to go unacknowledged as a priority issue has resulted in our grim reality. How can a country built on violence transcend from its founding nature? All I know, in this present moment, is that we have to hope it can, and we have to play active roles in cultivating a safer world.

While I was lucky to escape this horrific incident physically unscathed, I am certain the student body will be forever changed by this abhorrent event that took the lives of remarkable members of our community. As we look forward, I find myself questioning how our school, once known as the “Happy Ivy,” will ever return to its previous state. In the midst of everything, I find solace in the acts of others contributing finances and services to the families of the victims, acting heroically in the face of danger, and demonstrating love to each other. 

Thank you to everyone who worked tirelessly on this case. 

Ever True. 

Isabella Clarke is a senior at Brown University and an alum of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. Clarke lives in Vineyard Haven. Donations to families of the victims or to the Brown student body can be found at https://linktr.ee/browncommunityresources.