EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A 2022 East Grand Rapids graduate is back home in Michigan after experiencing the shooting at Brown University over the weekend during final exam week, describing the incident as a wake-up call about campus safety across the nation.
Alex Bruce, now a senior at Brown and a captain of the figure skating team, was in his dormitory next to the engineering building when the shooting occurred around 4 p.m. Saturday. He was working on a final project for one of his senior seminars when he received a group text warning of an active shooter on campus.
"I look at my phone for a second and I see that there's a text in our dorm group chat saying that there's an active shooter in Barus and Holley, which is right next door to my dorm, which is the engineering building, or the engineering building that was attacked," Bruce said.
His initial reaction was cautious but not alarmed.
"I think just for a second that, you know, I'll lock my door, just in case... I didn't think it was going to be anything," Bruce said.
Minutes later, at around 4:10 p.m., Alex says the university confirmed the danger with an official alert.
"It was a little bit surreal at the moment, my first reaction was just to find out more information, make sure that my friends were alright," Bruce said.
Confusion and Contradictory Information
While Bruce didn't hear the gunshots from his dorm, he witnessed the intensive police response from his window. He saw an officer with a drawn handgun standing on the steps of his dormitory.
"He was yelling at students to get off the street quite aggressively. And that spooked me a little bit. And then I also saw a group of officers with long guns leaving my building, too," Bruce said.
The university issued at least 12 alerts throughout the night and into Sunday morning, according to Bruce, all directing students to shelter in place. But Bruce said the messaging was confusing.
"It was a little confusing at the beginning when they said that a subject was neutralized, or that a shooter was neutralized, and then a couple of minutes later, they came back and said that nobody was in custody," Bruce said.
Extended Lockdown and Evacuation
Bruce remained in his dorm throughout Saturday night, unable to leave for food or other necessities. While other areas of campus were released from shelter-in-place orders around 5:30 a.m. Sunday, his dormitory, Minden Hall, remained locked down due to its proximity to the engineering building.
At 11 a.m. Sunday, Bruce received an email that his dorm would be voluntarily evacuated to a hotel in downtown Providence, with the caveat that if students left the building, they couldn't return.
"So at that point, I called my parents, we found the first flight back to Michigan, back to Traverse City, and then at like, 1 p.m. I got out of my dorm, said bye to one of my friends, got on a bus, and got on a train up to Boston and then a plane home," Bruce said.
The decision to leave was partly driven by hunger after being unable to access food for nearly 24 hours.
"Really what drove me at that point was food I wanted to eat because I had been sheltering in place since four o'clock the day previous," Bruce said.
Processing the Trauma
Now back in Michigan, Bruce says the experience feels surreal as he watches news coverage of his own campus.
"It feels like I'm watching any other campus shooting that's become all too common, except that when I look at the headline, it says, Brown University, and I'm a senior there," Bruce said.
"The actual gravity of what happened kind of comes in waves," he said, describing emotional moments including when a gate agent at the airport expressed sympathy and when he reunited with his mother in Traverse City.
Connection to Michigan State Shooting
The incident has connected Bruce to friends who experienced the 2023 shooting at Michigan State University, creating a troubling bond over shared trauma.
"Going to East Grand Rapids High, a bunch of us went to college, and I know a bunch of people, a bunch of friends at Michigan State, where they had the shooting back in 2023 and I was texting with one of those friends, and she said, 'I know the feeling,'" Bruce said.
"It is shameful that we allow this to happen where two of us can know the feeling of what that's like, and I don't have answers for that. I'm not a political scientist, I'm not a sociologist, but something needs to change," he said.
Personal Impact and Campus Culture
Bruce emphasized how the shooting has shattered his sense of security at what students call "the happy Ivy."
"I've been in review sessions like the one that was attacked in that very lecture hall, that could have been me who was attacked, or who was victimized here," Bruce said.
He described Brown as "an incredibly tight knit place" where "everybody knows everybody," making the attack particularly devastating for the small campus community.
"Brown is such a small school too. I'm only just learning the names of the victims who were killed in the attack, but I guarantee that I'm only two or three degrees personally removed from them," Bruce said.
Plans to Return
Despite the trauma, Bruce plans to return to Brown in January when classes resume after the university's extended winter break. The academic provost has provided grace periods for completing work disrupted by the incident.
"I do intend to return though next semester, and I think it's important that I return to and that every other student does, because we can't let this sort of terror and these attacks stop us," Bruce said.
"No matter what the motive of the assailant ends up being, we can't let them stop us from enacting the mission of our university and creating a culture where ideas flow and students can grow as people."
Bruce, who served as class president at East Grand Rapids High School in 2022 and is currently a pre-med student applying to medical schools, says he will spend the next four weeks with family and friends processing the situation while authorities continue their investigation.
The former East Grand Rapids student's experience highlights the ongoing campus safety concerns facing college students nationwide.
"This can happen anywhere, even at one of what we think is one of the happiest colleges on Earth," Bruce said.
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