Revenge, and forgiveness?

On Dec. 13, 2025, a man walked into a classroom on the campus of Brown University and began shooting a pistol. When he walked out, two students had been killed, and nine others wounded. The effects rippled well beyond that classroom. Students and staff at our university were terrorized, some having hidden or stuck in lockdown for hours; universities across the state cancelled classes; schools in Providence closed or cancelled after school events; across the city there was a palpable level of vigilance for days until the shooter was ultimately identified. This was personal for us — my colleagues were staffing the hospitals that treated the victims or provided mental health care for students. And it was personal for me, living a few miles from campus; for the first time ever, I was afraid for my daughter to walk home from school.