
There’s no time like the present to bring out the firehoses and clear the decks, I guess. That’s the impression I’m getting from the news coming out of the unforgivable situation at Brown University this morning.
Brown University police chief Rodney Chatman has been placed on leave more than a week after the mass shooting that killed two students and injured nine others in Providence, Rhode Island.
School president Christina Paxson said Monday evening that Brown will commission a review of campus safety and the response to the Dec. 13 shooting that investigators say was carried out by former grad student Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.
“A review like this is standard,” Paxson said in a statement. “As it takes place, Vice President for Public Safety and Emergency Management Rodney Chatman is on leave, effective immediately.”
The review will be overseen by Brown’s ‘highest governing body.’ That should be a comforting thought.
…The after-action review will focus on the response to the shooting on Dec. 13 and the periods before and after the incident. The campus safety and security assessment will evaluate the quality of the University’s current systems and approaches to on-campus. Both reviews will be conducted by external organizations and overseen by a committee of the Brown Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, the email read.
“I understand the gravity of the concerns about safety that follow a tragedy of the magnitude that Brown has suffered,” Paxson wrote. She added that University officials are “taking all steps to ensure that our campus is a safe place to work, live and learn.”
Ten days ago, a gunman walked into an engineering lecture hall on a Saturday afternoon that was full of students studying for finals. By the time he was done firing, two students were dead, nine were wounded, and the most excruciating, unforgivable clownshow of incompetence in modern memory was about to commence.
What a cast of characters.
The Brown University president, Christina Paxson, is the second-highest-paid president in the entire Ivy League, pulling down a whopping $3.1M a year.
President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 was paid over $3.1 million in 2023, according to nonprofit tax filings for fiscal year 2024 released by the IRS and reviewed by The Herald. This marks a roughly 74% increase from her total compensation of $1.8 million in 2022.
In 2023, Paxson received the highest total compensation that she had received thus far during her tenure as University president, beating her previous compensation high of $2 million in 2021 by 55%.
For this absolutely princely amount, she remained clueless and well-nigh worthless in an emergency situation.
🚨 Q: “With all due respect, six hours after the shooting, and you said you don’t know what was going on in that classroom?… Were they taking an exam, were they meeting for a club?”
Brown President Christina Paxson: “I don’t know.”
Q: “6 hours later. You’re the president.… pic.twitter.com/V9VK8LBgvx
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 14, 2025
…Brown President Christina Paxson: “I don’t know.”
Q: “6 hours later. You’re the president. You don’t know?”
PAXSON: “I do not know.”
REPORTER: “That’s kind of concerning.”
The mayor of Providence.
🚨 EMBARRASSING: Providence Mayor Brett Smiley whines at press conference:
“We’ve all been working for 49 hours straight. We are TIRED.”
Meanwhile, the Brown University shooter is still at large, probably laughing at this weak clown show
TIRED? Victims families are devastated! pic.twitter.com/mZWG1E1WnU
— Alec Lace (@AlecLace) December 15, 2025
Who really, really did not appreciate questions from the local press.
These reporters are direct at this presser in Providence RI!
The mayor cannot take
the pressure. One reporter “aren’t you condescending?”Mayor, “we’re moving on.” And pale-faced mayor immediately calls on another person.
Inept mayor. Inept president. Inept police chief.
— christianlhwils (@ChrisLHWils) December 19, 2025
The Providence police chief, Oscar Perez, originally from Colombia, and for whom English is a second language, would conduct a good part of each of these pressers in Spanish.
The Brown shooting pressers are so bizarre. And one of the odder moments involves a reporter who keeps asking questions in Spanish and is answered in Spanish by Colonel Oscar Perez, the Providence, RI police chief. SMH. pic.twitter.com/l6o82zMvK2
— Izzy Lyman (@IzzyLyman) December 17, 2025
Now, it was nearly impossible to understand him anyway, but when you do a little research and find out that the population of what you would think would be almost all snooty New England-centric Providence is 44% Hispanic, well…that partially explains that.
This is INSANE: The Colombia-born Providence police chief leading the investigation into the Brown shooting has a nephew who was recently sentenced to 22 years in prison for running a fentanyl ring in Rhode Island as his uncle was rising through the ranks of the police… pic.twitter.com/hJs67sakIY
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 18, 2025
Brown University proudly has a ‘Diversity in Providence‘ page on its website.
The just suspended Brown University Police Chief, aka Vice President of Public Safety, is a fellow named Rodney Chatman.
As Jesse Watters says, his backstory is crazy. Chatman once held the same title at the University of Utah and is on the record as not a fan of policing in general.
‘Communities,‘ Chatman said, ‘Don’t want policing done to them.‘
🚨🇺🇸 BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTING FALLOUT: POLICE CHIEF’S SHADY HIRE, DEI DRAMA, & CITY HALL CHAOS EXPOSED
Jesse Watters is ripping into Brown University’s police chief, Rodney Chatman, after that deadly campus shooting.
Turns out the guy’s got a wild backstory:
Booted from the… pic.twitter.com/2d2C6rivqM
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 18, 2025
Well, communities and presidents in that mindset who hired Chatman got the right guy, for sure. For Paxson and Brown University, he was just what the woke doctor ordered.
I was confused how there could be cameras everywhere – first I heard it was over 800, then 1200 – and yet no video of the shooter at this building? Then, there were the excuses that it was an old building or some such nonsense.
🚨 BREAKING: MULTIPLE reports just EVISCERATED Brown University’s DEI President for covering up their camera situation
“You DID NOT have cameras in this building! Just SAY IT so we can get this over!”
“Law enforcement standing behind you said if Brown has cameras in that part… pic.twitter.com/wU8KmZgsuH
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 19, 2025
Brown University and three-million-dollar-a-year genius President Paxson says in that tense exchange that she doesn’t believe cameras would have made a difference during the murders or helped advance the subsequent investigation.
Then I heard a horrifying statistic about campus safety, which Chatman was directly responsible for – there had been thirty on-campus rapes in two years.
WHUT?!
Buildings that have no basic security, no keypads or guards.
Nightmare Before Christmas.
The numbers dropping out of Brown University are absolutely staggering.
30 rapes in two years.
Buildings lacked basic security.
Not even keypads or guards.In the shadows of soft-on-crime policies, Brown University’s camera-free Ivy League campus was… pic.twitter.com/upSC1rrGTi
— Tosca Austen (@ToscaAusten) December 21, 2025
It’s too late for the rape victims, but what would have made a difference for those struck by bullets that horrific Saturday afternoon might have been if Chatman’s campus security crew had heeded the warnings of the janitor who saw the assassin lurking around campus over a dozen times and told Chatman’s police force.
🚨 BREAKING: A custodian at Brown University spotted the shooter peering into windows and classrooms over a DOZEN TIMES
He informed the university, and they did NOTHING. Brown Officials need to be SACKED
DEI is literally getting innocent people KlLLED. pic.twitter.com/D73bzulV7Q
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) December 22, 2025
When alerting the police yet again about the stalker he’d caught, the janitor got told by campus security, ‘I’m not here for that.‘
The expert class is dismissive of janitors.
— Julie H Wright✝️⭐️⭐️⭐️🥋 (@juliew38138) December 22, 2025
When you’re led by a police officer and president who don’t believe in policing, that would be true, I guess, with the expected results.
Someone in the Brown campus police department was unhappy with Chatman because he’d already received a vote of ‘no confidence’ back in October from the university’s police union.
“Brown University Police Chief Rodney Chatman is on leave effective immediately.”
“In August, the Brown Police Sergeants Union issued a unanimous vote of no confidence in Chatman’s leadership, and in October, the Brown University Security Patrolperson’s Association did the same” pic.twitter.com/l9Ek9oDx2B
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) December 23, 2025
What a shame that lives had to be lost because Paxson didn’t act on what, in fact, were two university police unions’ votes on Chatman’s fitness to remain in his post.
…In October, two Brown University unions—the Brown University Security Patrolperson’s Association and the University Police Sergeants Union—voted no confidence in Chatman, citing concerns about the direction and leadership of the Department of Public Safety.
…Previously, Chatman urged other campus-police departments to refrain from posting images of officers with weapons or engaging in tactical maneuvers online, arguing such displays can provoke anxiety and urging a shift toward emphasizing compassion and community engagement.
“To my police leaders: please consider removing pictures prominently displayed on your websites and promotional material of your officers engaged in tactical maneuvers and displaying weapons. We all know you have them,” Chatman said. “Consider displaying your compassion, and engagement with the community that alleviates the anxiety of our presence.”
Chatman was singing off the same sheet of Brown wrapping paper as Paxson. No wonder she hired him.
…Brown’s Department of Public Safety conducts listening sessions to provide students a forum to express concerns about police–community relations and campus safety programming. The department notes that participants may learn about the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) and provide feedback.
The DIAP initiative, launched in 2016, remains central to Brown’s approach to diversity within Public Safety. In 2017, Brown engaged Dr. Scout, a transgender academic, to lead a three-day diversity workshop focusing on cultural competence and engagement with LGBTQ and other diverse communities. Brown contends that a diverse workforce is essential to fostering trust and enhancing service delivery.
Brown’s public-safety materials emphasize a commitment to trust-building with the university’s diverse community and addressing racial justice concerns, while acknowledging that improvements remain possible. Critics from Fox News have challenged Brown’s DEI focus, arguing that safety should take precedence.
That entire campus – in fact, that town – is so steeped in a foreign culture I do not think it’s recoverable, no matter who they fire or what fetid detritus they hose out. The elitist, higher learning bubblethink that has no ties to real life and permeates every nook and cranny of Brown and Providence is still on full display, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Chatman doesn’t keep his job when it’s all said and done.
Why shouldn’t he if the rest of them remain in place? He’s no more or less an instrument and product of the progressive mind virus than they.
Right now, all the woke tools are in the afterglow of ‘everybody gets a trophy.’
Ridiculous! Retards give Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez and dipstick Mayor Brett Smiley a standing ovation during a college basketball game. They should have been booed out of the place. pic.twitter.com/ir6D0T3HZB
— Mike Engleman🇺🇲 (@RealHickory) December 20, 2025
The umbrage and wounded hurt that Brown and Providence officials are going to evince during the coming months, as their true, innate ugliness and bumbling, gross negligence are exposed when lawsuits start tearing the gauzy curtain off their sanctified little world is going to be a sight to behold, though.
One would think with all that available brainpower, they wouldn’t dare make the one black guy in the entire tragedy take the fall for it, either…although they’ll probably try.
It’ll be amazing how fast ‘cultural competence and engagement’ go out the window when the endowment and $3.1M a year is on the line.
Please help Ed, David, John, and me continue exposing Democrats’ plans to lead America down a dangerous path.
We’d love to invite you to join Hot Air VIP and use promo code MERRY to get 74% off your membership!











