Joseph Oduro had just wrapped up a study session for the final exam in an introductory economics course at Brown University when he heard screaming outside the room and several loud bangs.
Five seconds later, a door opened at the top of the auditorium-style classroom in the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building. A man dressed in black burst in, yelling something unintelligible. He was carrying “the longest gun I’ve ever seen in my life,” Oduro said in an interview Sunday.
Oduro, a senior from New Jersey, is a teaching assistant in the Principles of Economics course, one of the most popular classes on campus. On Saturday afternoon, he was reviewing the course material with 60-odd students ahead of Tuesday’s exam.
Oduro, 21, locked eyes with the shooter. A single thought went through his mind: get down.
He crouched behind the podium where only moments earlier he had been offering students words of encouragement ahead of their final exam. He heard shots, dozens of them, and screams. Students began running down the aisles to get away. Some escaped through the side doors at the bottom of the classroom while others huddled with Oduro, all trying to stay as quiet as possible.
One of them was a first-year student from Massachusetts who had been shot twice in the leg. Oduro gave her his hand and told her to squeeze it. “I told her to put all the pain on me,” Oduro said. “I just kept telling her, ‘You’re going to be okay.’”
The attack at the Ivy League school left two students dead and nine others wounded, officials said. Early Sunday, a person of interest was taken into custody according to Providence Mayor Brett Smiley (D).
Oduro doesn’t know how long it took for police to arrive. There were other victims in the classroom and Oduro got his first real look at the scene as he was escorted out by police. He didn’t want to describe what he saw.
Oduro stayed with his wounded first-year student in the back of a police car all the way to the hospital. He wanted to make sure she would be all right. It sounded corny, he knew, but he truly loved the students in the class, where he has been a teaching assistant since his sophomore year.
It hurt, he said, “to see them all in a state of panic and desperate pain.”
After hours at the hospital and questioning by the police, Oduro went to stay at a friend’s place who lives off campus. His voice was quiet and full of exhaustion. He had no idea what would come next.
On Sunday morning, Brown said that all remaining exams and classes were canceled.
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