Brown University students feeling ‘raw’ and ‘nervous’ in return to campus after mass shooting

Providence, Rhode Island —

Just over six years ago, Mia Tretta was shot in the stomach by a student at her high school in Santa Clarita, California.

She survived, but two others were killed that day. After recovering, she returned to the campus to finish her high school career because “being with the people that experienced this with me was the best option,” Tretta told CNN on Monday.

Tretta has now chosen that path again, returning this week to Brown University, the site of a mass shooting last month.

“I mean, I’ve already done this,” Tretta told CNN before the spring semester begins Wednesday. “Six years ago, I had to walk back into a campus that was … missing two students. And now I’m here walking back, and campus is missing two people.”

Tretta was one of a number of Brown students who spoke to CNN to mark the restart of classes, amid ongoing questions about security on campus and how to apportion blame for the shooting that left the campus community anxious and rattled.

“It’s so unfair that everyone on this campus has to come back and they’re scared, and they’re nervous,” Tretta said. “They don’t know what to expect, and I don’t either.”

Before attending Brown University, Mia Tretta was wounded in a 2019 mass shooting at her high school in California. David Crane/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News/Getty Images

It’s been a month since a 48-year-old former student opened fire inside a campus engineering building on December 13, killing students Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and wounding nine others.

The suspected shooter, Clau