Brown University students, staff say security worries brushed off for years before massacre: ‘Gamble with our lives’

Brown University has been brushing off security issues for years — ignoring warnings from students, staff and even police, The Post has learned.

The revelation comes after two students were killed and nine others hurt in a mass shooting at the Ivy League school that has seen critics slam the institution for prioritizing image over safety.

The engineering building where the shooting took place didn’t have a swipe-card mechanism and could be accessed by anyone through the public-facing coffee shop, students said. It didn’t have security officer posted at the front either, like some other buildings do, school officials have said.

On the day of the shooting, there was a 17-minute gap between the 911 call and the university sending out its first alert to students, according to a timeline published in the student newspaper.

Even the Rhode Island school’s own security staff has complained about the lax attitude.

In 2023, a school administrator allegedly refused to cancel a planned children’s reading after a school safety officer warned there was a credible shooting threat, according to an expose in the student newspaper.

At the time, police in Bristol, Conn. warned the Providence, RI university that its ex-assistant football coach — Dennis “DJ” Hernandez, the older brother of infamous NFL player and killer Aaron Hernandez — was planning a mass shooting.

Hernandez was displaying “very erratic behavior,” and told someone close to him he had visited the university’s campus to map out his intended spree, according to Bristol Police’s arrest report.

“When I go, I’m taking down everything. And don’t give a f–k who gets caught in the crossfire. I’ve died for years now and now it’s other people’s turn,” Hernandez wrote on Facebook Messenger, according to a federal criminal complaint.

“Not all shootings are bad I’m realizing. Some are necessary for change to happen.”

But Brown’s department of public safety dismissed the threat, calling it “not based . . . on credible intelligence.”

The children’s reading — “Storytime with Elvy,” part of a summer series with the Providence Public Library that draws dozens of local K-12 children — went ahead as planned. Elvy, the school’s department of public safety’s “comfort dog,” did not make it after his handler cancelled in response to the threats.

Instead Brown posted that “Elvy has a conflict” but the who must go on.

Bristol cops arrested Hernandez and he was charged by the US Attorney’s Office and sentenced in February to 18 months of time served and three years of supervised release.

In 2021, Brown University allegedly refused to call Providence police after a caller claimed to have placed bombs throughout campus and was carrying an AR-15 gun, according to the Brown Daily Herald.

The local K-9 unit was finally called an hour later — after the school’s public safety officers spoke up, according to the paper.

But it took Brown another hour to send out an alert to students.

One of the officers later claimed the university went as far as altering its officer’s report of the incident to remove mention of his concerns, and references to the delay.

Michael Greco, a 17-year school safety officer at Brown, was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder months after the bomb threat and sued the university, court records showed.

“Officers of this department, myself included, worry that Brown’s desire to protect its reputation, at all costs, leads to a willingness to gamble with our lives,” he wrote in an email to the administration, according to the student paper.

So far in 2025, security officers have issued two votes of no confidence against the university’s police chief Rodney Chatman and the school’s department of public safety.

A scathing October editorial in the Brown Daily Herald called the problems with the school’s security was a “threat to public safety” and the university was “failing in its obligation” to keep students safe.

Brown University did not return The Post’s request for comment, but earlier this week President Christina Paxon said she was “deeply saddened” to see people questioning the university’s commitment to safety.