The suspect in the Brown University mass shooting apparently made bizarre “barking” noises just before he opened fire and killed two Ivy League students, officials said.
Some witnesses claimed they heard Claudio Neves Valent, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, uttering the canine-specific sounds when he walked into the Brown lecture hall and unloaded more than 40 rounds Saturday.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the Brown University shooting suspect, allegedly made bizarre barking noises during the rampage. U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Rhode Island“There are some witnesses who said he said nothing. There are some that say he made a barking noise,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told a Thursday press conference.
“Don’t ask me. I don’t know why. And that’s it. There is no other spoken word beyond that, that we are aware of.”
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Terrified students are seen hiding in the Brown University library amid the horrific attack that killed two of their classmates.
The revelation came as investigators admitted they were still scrambling to determine a motive for the bloodshed.
Valente sprayed bullets into a classroom at the Ivy League school before gunning down Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro just two days later, authorities said.
The gunman — who attended Brown more than two decades ago as a PhD student and was a former classmate in Portugal of the slain MIT professor — was ultimately found dead on Thursday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Despite the apparent ties to Brown and the MIT professor, authorities said Valente’s motive in the killings remains a mystery.
Law enforcement officers escort students near the engineering building at Brown University on December 13, 2025. AFP via Getty Images“I don’t think we have any idea why now, or why Brown, or why these students, why this classroom,” Neronha said.
