Brown University has placed its troubled police chief on administrative leave “effective immediately” in the wake of the devastating campus shooting that killed two students.

Rodney Chatman, the Ivy League school’s vice president for public safety and emergency management — who has been criticized for Brown’s lax security in light of the shooting — “will be on administrative leave, effective immediately,” while a review into campus safety is underway, the university announced Monday.

Hugh T. Clements, the former chief of police of the Providence Police Department, was named as Chatman’s temporary replacement, according to the statement.

The decision comes as the US Department of Education is probing possible violations of the Clery Act at Brown University. The act, enacted in 1990, requires universities to “meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid,” according to a press release from the department.

The university is also doing its own external review of the Dec. 13 shooting that killed freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokob and sophomore Ella Cook, “including a complete assessment and evaluation of campus safety in the period leading up to the tragedy, the preparedness and response on the date of the shooting, and the emergency management response in the aftermath.”

Since former grad student Claudio Neves Valente stormed a classroom full of students and opened fire, both Brown cops’ preparedness and response to the mass casualty event have come under scrutiny.

Ahead of the deadly attack that also injured nine students, a janitor who works at Brown said he reported seeing Neves Valente “circling” the campus “for weeks” to campus police, but no action was taken, according to the Boston Globe. Surveillance footage later revealed the killer had cased the area surrounding the elite Providence school the day ahead of his ambush. 

And following the first 911 call reporting the active shooter, there was a 17-minute gap before a campus-wide shooting alert, according to a timeline published in the student newspaper.

Chatman’s department, along with local and federal law enforcement partners, were unable to identify a suspect in the school shooting until a Reddit post helped break the case days later. A homeless man, only identified as John, provided crucial tips that led authorities right to Neves Valente. It’s unclear if he will receive the promised $50,000 award, but a source told The Post that he is being “taken care of.” 

Neves Valente was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, nearly a week after the shooting. He died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

Authorities said Neves Valente also shot and killed MIT Professor Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Mass., on Dec. 15.

But even before the tragic incident, Chatman’s four-year tenure with the university had been plagued with varied potentially career-ending allegations, including one departing officer telling the Brown Daily Herald in January 2025 that the chief was “vindictive” and ran a “toxic,” “s—tshow” department.

The university’s top cop was subject to two no-confidence votes even before the disastrous shooting, as some expressed “deep concern” over his leadership.

When he was hired, Brown University president Christina Paxson lauded his wealth of “values, skills and experience.” 

But now, many students and locals are accusing the university of knowingly neglecting their safety through its loose security policies. 

In 2023, a school administrator allegedly refused to cancel a planned children’s reading after a school safety officer warned there was a credible shooting threat — made by NFL player Aaron Hernandez’s unhinged older brother, according to an expose in the student newspaper.

In 2021, Brown University allegedly refused to call Providence police after a caller claimed to have placed bombs throughout campus and was carrying an AR-15 gun, according to the Brown Daily Herald. 

One veteran public safety officer who helped deal with the defunct bomb threat sued the university and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The university has also pledged to increase campus security over the winter break and in preparation for the spring semester by doubling the number of police and security personnel and adding cameras where they are missing, including inside the Barus & Holley building, where the shooting occurred. 

“I want to assure you of Brown’s deep commitment to take every possible action to increase the safety and security of our campus, with the goal of protecting our community from future harm,” Paxson said in a message to community members.