Former Brown University student and friend to Ella Cook blames 'spending priorities' for lack of security

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Former Brown University student and friend to victim Ella Cook blames the school's 'spending priorities' for lack of security

Former Brown student and publisher of the Brown Spectator Alex Shieh spoke to Fox News Digital about his friendship with victim Ella Cook and slammed the school's 'spending priorities' in the wake of the recent shooting.

A former Brown University student and friend of Ella Cook, who was murdered by a lone gunman at the University earlier this month, said the Ivy League school’s lack of preparedness and resources to catch the killer didn’t come as a surprise.

Brown’s misguided financial priorities are the root cause of how a killer was able to enter and exit the university’s facilities essentially undetected, Alex Shieh told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview,

"I don't think it's particularly surprising that the old buildings on campus have never been retrofitted with updated security systems, because that's not what the priorities are with the spending, and that they know that people will want to come to Brown anyway, irrespective of the facilities, because of the Ivy League name," Shieh said. 

"It is sort of confusing to people that you have a school that costs $100,000 a year, you have an $8 billion endowment," Shieh said. "How come the building doesn't have cameras?"

Split image showing Brown University victims Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, alongside MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who was killed. (Instagram/elinacoutlakis/GoFundMe/Jake Belcher for MIT)

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Shieh is no stranger to what he says is bloated and wasteful spending by Brown. During his time at the school, he served as the publisher for the university’s student-run paper, the Brown Spectator, and caused a stir when he started asking questions about how much administrators make and what they do at work. 

Shieh sent out a survey to administrators, asking them to detail their jobs after being inspired by President Donald Trump’s DOGE, but was met with opposition from faculty. He noted that administrators are making millions, while facilities and students’ quality of life suffer.

Brown took disciplinary action against the former student, first claiming he was causing emotional and psychological harm, invading privacy, misrepresenting the university, and violating operational rules.

Former Brown University student Alex Shieh faced disciplinary charges from the school for trying to uncover wasteful administrative spending. 

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"There's about 4,000 administrators at a school of about 11,000 students," Shieh said. "And this struck me as odd, and it struck me very clear that this growth and ballooning in the number of staff administrators is what's been leading to the cost of tuition rising precipitously all across the country, but particularly at a school like Brown University."

"The classes aren't necessarily what distinguishes [Brown] from other schools, not the caliber of the facilities, not the caliber of the dorms, but [what] really distinguishes Brown and makes it worth the price in the eyes of some people is the fact that Brown is in the Ivy League," Shieh added.

Brown’s aggressive reaction to Shieh's reporting sparked a House Judiciary Committee hearing in June, with Shieh as a witness, to discuss free speech concerns as well as misguided and excessive Ivy League spending.

Interior view of Barus and Holley Room 166. on the campus of Brown University in Providence, R.I.. On Saturday, December 13, around 4p.m., a masked man with a gun entered a review session in Barus & Holley Room 166 for ECON 0110: "Principles of Economics," shouted something indiscernible and opened fire. (Kenna Lee/The Brown Daily Herald)

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The University ultimately dropped all charges against Shieh, who wonders if some of the waste he was hoping to expose could be the reason that facilities weren’t equipped with cameras or better security. 

"They use their money in really silly ways," Shieh said. "Like paying their athletic director of a small Ivy League school millions of dollars a year and having an inordinate amount of administrators on staff."

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Shieh, who like Cook was a member of the school's College Republicans, said he was shocked when he learned she had been murdered. 

"She was just somebody who was very nice and everybody respected, and nobody really had a problem with her on campus, which is why it was so surprising that it happened to her, of all people," Shieh said. 

A homeless man living on Brown University's campus was a lead witness for investigators to find the killer.  (FBI Boston)

On Nov. 13, Claudio Neves-Valente entered Brown’s campus and took the lives of Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov before driving 50 miles to Brookline, Massachusetts and killing MIT nuclear physicist Nuno Loureiro two days later, according to authorities.

Neves-Valente avoided capture and a manhunt lasting several days followed. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot in a storage shed Thursday night in Salem, New Hampshire.

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Law enforcement officials and investigators credit a homeless man who lived on Brown’s campus for providing an account of his interaction with Neves-Valente that eventually led to the shooter. 

Had Brown University been equipped with preventative technology and had cameras in the facilities which the gunman targeted, it’s possible the shooter would have been apprehended and the MIT professor would not have been killed.

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston