Post by : Rameen Ariff

Brown University junior Mia Tretta faced a terrifying reminder of her past when her campus erupted in chaos during finals week. Tretta, who was only 15 years old in 2019, survived a mass shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, where two students were killed and three others, including her, were wounded.

On Saturday, while studying in her dorm with a friend, Tretta’s phone buzzed with an emergency alert about a threat at the university’s engineering building. The warnings were familiar, and the chilling possibility of another shooting soon became reality. Over the course of the day, the incident escalated, leaving two people dead and nine others injured in Providence, Rhode Island, as the campus went into lockdown.

Video footage from onlookers captured students fleeing across campus, barricading themselves inside classrooms, and seeking cover as police responded to the shooting. Tretta recalled the haunting feeling of déjà vu, describing how the alert language instantly brought back memories of the Saugus High School attack. She said in an interview, “No one should ever have to go through one shooting, let alone two. Being shot at my high school at 15 was already a life-changing trauma, and I never imagined facing it again in college.”

Tretta’s experience highlights a grim reality for her generation, which has grown up practicing lockdowns and active shooter drills, only to confront similar violence as young adults. Other students have endured repeated incidents, including survivors from the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting who later faced threats at Florida State University.

Another Brown student, Zoe Weissman, shared her own connection to repeated trauma on social media, recalling how she had attended a middle school adjacent to the Parkland high school during that shooting. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg confirmed that his son, a Brown junior, was safe after barricading himself with furniture during the Providence shooting.

After surviving the Saugus High School shooting, Tretta became an advocate for stricter gun control measures, joining the group Students Demand Action and meeting with former President Joe Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland. She has worked to raise awareness about “ghost guns,” untraceable firearms like the one used at her high school.

At Brown University, Tretta had been preparing a paper on the educational journeys of students who have lived through school shootings, drawing from her own experiences. The Providence shooting interrupted what she had hoped would be a safe and normal college life. She said, “I chose Brown because it felt like a place where I could finally be safe. But this happened again, and it didn’t have to.”

Tretta’s story underscores the persistent threat of gun violence in American schools and colleges, highlighting the urgent need for stronger safety measures and continued advocacy for responsible gun regulations. Her resilience in the face of repeated trauma serves as both a warning and an inspiration, reminding communities of the real human impact of mass shootings on students and families.

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