A Brown University student who once survived a school shooting in California has spoken about living through another attack, saying she never believed it could happen twice.
Junior Mia Tretta, 21, was on campus in Providence on Saturday when a gunman opened fire during final exams, killing two people and injuring nine others at the university's engineering building. Police later detained a person of interest, and the campus remained on edge as officers continued to patrol the area.
Brown University Student Survives Second Mass Shooting
Tretta was in her dorm room studying with a friend when the first alert arrived, warning of an emergency at the engineering complex. At first, she thought something serious had happened, but did not immediately assume it was a shooting, according to the BBC.
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As more messages urged students to lock doors, stay away from windows, and shelter in place, she realised the language was the same as the alerts she received during a previous attack, and she stayed inside, checking on friends by text.
Six years earlier, Tretta had been shot in the abdomen when a 16-year-old opened fire at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, in 2019. Two students were killed in that attack, including her best friend, and several others were wounded. Tretta spent days in the hospital, underwent surgery, and still carries bullet fragments, later becoming involved in advocacy on gun violence and "ghost guns," the type of weapon used at her high school.
Opening Up About Her Experiences
Speaking after the Brown shooting, she said no one should have to live through one mass shooting, let alone two, and described feeling disbelief that it was happening again, Boston reported. She explained that she chose Brown because it felt like a place where she could finally feel safe and try to live a more normal life as a survivor, but now fears and memories from her teenage years have resurfaced.
Tretta has leaned on relatives, fellow survivors, and campus counseling services in the days since the attack, saying the incident has again changed how she moves through classrooms and public spaces.
Tretta has been studying international and public affairs and education, and has been working on a paper about the educational paths of students who have lived through school shootings. That assignment was due days after the Brown attack, which again disrupted her campus and her routine.
She is one of several Brown students who have previously experienced school shootings, including sophomore Zoe Weissman, who lived through the Parkland, Florida, tragedy as a middle schooler, illustrating how one generation is now carrying the impact of multiple mass shootings through high school and college, as per Yahoo News.
