Community gathering honors victims of shooting incident

The Providence City Council held a community gathering in Lippitt Memorial Park on Sunday in the wake of a Saturday shooting that left two Brown students dead. With candle lighting, speeches and music, community members honored those affected by Saturday’s events.

The gathering was originally scheduled as a menorah and tree-lighting ceremony. “Councilor (Sue) AnderBois, with the support of her Providence City Council colleagues, decided to transform the event into a gathering space for mourning, hugs, and community care,” Providence City Council Chief of Staff June Rose wrote in a message to The Herald. 

In a message shared on the Providence City Council’s Instagram page, AnderBois described the updated event as an “opportunity for us to come together and support one another as we reflect, mourn and hold each other close.”

AnderBois, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth-El Sarah Mack made remarks after the first candles were lit, emphasizing the importance of healing as a community during difficult times. During their reflections, blankets and additional candles were distributed to attendees.

“It’s going to be a long road,” Smiley said at the event. “But what I know about this community is that we will be here for one another.”

The gathering included a performance of the song “God Bless America,” moments of silence for the two students who were killed in the shooting and several minutes of meditation, among other community-centered programming.

Providence community members, both affiliated and unaffiliated with Brown, attended the vigil to show their support for students on Brown’s campus.

Rebekah McKinney ’94, a director of Brown’s Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, told The Herald that the Brown and Providence communities are “intertwined.”

“It is really important to be clear that Brown doesn’t exist separate from Providence and Rhode Island,” she said.

Providence resident Peter Quesnel told The Herald that Saturday’s events left him feeling “traumatized” even though he was “not connected to the students and the people who were shot.”

“I want them to know that the city and the community support them,” Quesnel added.

Julian Espinal, a student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who told The Herald he grew up in South Providence, said that he heard the news of the shooting an hour after he arrived home after finishing his final exams.

“I was just thinking, as a student myself, that (I) was just taking the same final exams these students were also taking,” he said. “The first thing I did was put myself in their shoes.”

“We’re the smallest state on the map, but being here, seeing this much love, it means a lot to me,” Espinal added

Holly Gaboriault, a storytelling producer for the Brown Arts Institute and a professor and critic at RISD, told The Herald that a shooting was her “worst fear.” She said she begins each semester by analyzing her classroom to find exit areas.

Prior to his role as Providence City Council member, John Goncalves ’13 MA’15 was a teacher in Minneapolis. As an educator, he had to interrupt teaching to show students how to take cover in the case of an emergency, he recalled at the event. “Why are we doing that in America in 2025?” he asked.

“I feel like incidents like these promote all of our worst impulses, and I think it is extremely powerful to see people in our community in person,” said Sarah Colbourn GS, a third-year PhD student in international relations.

Colbourn and other attendees emphasized how important it is for those still on campus to interact with their community. 

“One thing that makes Brown unique in the world is its openness,” Mackenzie Abernethy MAT’19 said. “I think that we continue that by showing up and turning out.”