- Rhode Island is reeling from a shooting in an engineering building on the Brown University campus.

Two students were killed.

They've been identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, who was Vice President of Brown's College Republicans, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a freshman originally from Uzbekistan who hoped to become a neurosurgeon.

Nine other people, eight of them students, were injured.

The shooting is the first of its kind to happen in Rhode Island.

At the time of this taping, the gunman remained at large and investigators are aggressively working to identify him.

One of the many organizations involved in the response is the Nonviolence Institute, a Providence nonprofit that has worked for more than 20 years to prevent violence and productively settle disputes.

Lisa Pina-Warren became the institute's head last year after years of experience with the agency.

So how does she think Rhode Island should respond after suffering its first mass shooting?

And what lessons has Pina-Warren learned about how victims of trauma can heal and move forward after facing violence?

I'm Ian Donnis, and that's just some of what we talked about in this episode of One on One.

(curious ambient music) Executive Director of the Nonviolence Institute, Lisa Pina-Warren, thank you so much for joining us, and welcome to One on One.

- Thank you for having me, Ian.

- This has clearly been a terribly sad week in Rhode Island because of the Brown shooting.

Where were you when you first heard the news?

- I was actually at home.

I was in my house.

- And it's hard to be shocked in this day and age.

Mass shootings have become a common thing, sadly.

Were you shocked by it or was it more of a jolt?

- Initially, actually a friend called me because one of my best friends, her daughter was working on Thayer Street and she called her mom saying she was concerned something was going on.

And my friends know that I usually get the calls, so she reached out to me to ask if I heard anything yet.

And I said, "No, nothing happened.

I haven't received a call."

And before I could hang up with her, my phone was ringing.

It was the hospital making me aware that there was an incident.

And it kind of reminded me of a couple of years ago in Providence, we had what we called the Carolina Avenue 9 shooting, and there was nine victims.

And I kind of got the same tone and coincidentally it was the same social worker that called me and she said, "You know, Lisa, I don't know, but they say we have multiple victims coming in."

So I wasn't really sure at first if it was a mass shooting, if it was a bunch of youth on Thayer Street might have gotten to an altercation.

I wasn't sure what I was walking into.

- Brown University President, Christina Paxson, praised the role played by the Nonviolence Institute.

Did the university reach out to your institute to set that up?

- No, actually it happens naturally when we get a call.

We respond to the hospital, we have a partnership with Brown Health, and what happened was Ms.

Paxson, President Paxson, came to the hospital.

She and I have met a few times over the last couple of years, so she's aware of the work we do, but this time, unfortunately, she got to see it in action pretty close to home for her.

- And what role does the institute play in going to a hospital after this kind of situation?

- Well, in this situation in particular, our victim services team and our outreach team, we responded together.

This was kind of an all hands on deck because of the amount of victims that were arriving at the hospital.

One of the things that we do is support victims, families, community members, hospital staff.

We're there to kind of help to navigate.

And in a situation like this, it's all hands on deck at the hospital, all hands on deck with police.

So, we kind of have a good system in place now when something like this happens at the hospital, how we work together and coordinate so that families are informed, victims are supported.

This was really important for me.

You know, I have children around the same age and these children's families weren't here.

They're not local.

So, these children were brought to the emergency room, and of course the hospital staff, everyone is there to care for them, but it was important for me to be able to, for me and my staff to just be there as emotional support as well and let them know that their parents were coming, that we informed them, or excuse me, the social work team was informing parents.

Some of the children, students were already informing their parents.

They had their cell phones.

So yeah, in that case, it's more of support, emotional support, and then other things fall into place.

Over the last few days, we filed victims compensation with families.

We helped to coordinate with Brown, lodging, hotel stays, Uber rides, and things like that.

- We know that violent crime in America has generally trended down over recent decades, but these kind of mass shootings have become more commonplace.

Why?

- You know, Ian, I thought about that a lot the last couple of days because I really feel like we are becoming desensitized to these things.

And I kind of went down a rabbit hole and Googled mass shootings in the US, and I was a little taken aback in how many have happened in the last decade, how many have happened in the last couple of months here in the US.

And I really do feel like we're desensitized because I don't recall seeing them on the news.

I don't recall, you know, so, there is an evil amongst us that, unfortunately, I don't know the whys, but it is frightening that this is happening in our country.

- As you say, mass shootings have become so common that at least two of the Brown students who were on campus during the shooting had been survivors of earlier mass shootings in other places.

It must be very frustrating.

As you know, police in Providence and other cities have used a playbook in trying to confront urban-based crime where they bring together some of the people with the greatest propensity to shoot and say, "We're going to come down on you hard if you do the wrong thing.

And if you do the right thing, we're going to try and help you out."

But these kind of mass shootings are just so unpredictable.

- Absolutely.

You know, that is actually how the Nonviolence Institute started, right?

With the goal of helping young people in the urban core make better choices, connect them to resources, whether it's education, employment, help to make sure that their basic needs are met.

These are problems, these are issues that we can assist.

With a mass shooting, it's hard to know when, where, who, how.

You know, I read somewhere that some mass shooters plan this out for years, you know, and it's happening in our backyards.

It could be happening in our neighbor's home, someone's planning to do this in our community.

This happening here in Providence, it's a reality check for me, myself, but I think for all of us.

You know, it's kind of like we feel like, "Oh wow, that's really sad that that happened in New York.

It's really sad that it happened in North Carolina."

And then it happens here and it's like, "Oh my goodness, what could we have done?

Is there anything we could have done?"

I say no, and that's really scary, because we don't know if it can happen again.

- On the morning after the Brown University shooting, there was news of a mass shooting in Australia, and that kind of goes to your point that these incidents are so common that some people do become desensitized to it.

Do you think we need to do something different in the response to lessen the trend in which people become desensitized?

- I mean, I think we have gotten desensitized to a lot of things that's happening across our country.

The tolerance level, there's a tolerance level now, that it's screaming out.

There's things that, you know, at my age of 51, I can reflect back to when I was a teen, that there was things that were not acceptable and we wouldn't see on television and we wouldn't accept.

And I just feel like, as a whole, our culture has shifted when it comes to violence and it's really frightening to think about what does that mean for our future.

- We did an interview last year and you told me at that time that you witnessed a lot of violence while growing up, and later, as you grew older, lost some loved ones to violence.

Can I ask you how you processed that emotionally and moved past that?

- I'll be honest with you, I've been asked that several times throughout the years.

How I've processed, how I've grieved really has been by doing the work.

I've never gone to a therapist.

I've never, you know, people tell me all the time, maybe I should.

And I believe I should, because I tell friends, family, community members, people that are grieving to talk to someone.

But for me, my outlet was doing the work and is still doing the work.

When I'm able to sit by someone's side while they're grieving, that helps me grieve.

One of the things that I said to one of the dads at the hospital, his daughter had been shot, and he was waiting for his older daughter to arrive.

And we were just chatting and I told him how, when I lost my brother, that I felt like I couldn't grieve at times because I was so worried and trying to be supportive to my mother that was grieving her son.

But sibling grief is a thing too, you know, and he appreciated me sharing that with him.

Grief impacts us all differently, and I think we all process differently, but for me, it is really being there for those during those most difficult times.

I feel like I am blessed to be there with those that are impacted by violence and those that lose loved ones to violence.

- As you said a bit earlier, there have been other incidents in Rhode Island with multiple shooting injuries and deaths, but this was the first of what is classified as a mass shooting.

How do you think this will change Rhode Island?

- I mean, I think for a long time, this is going to be really heavy on our hearts.

I know even children in our local public schools, I have a lot of friends in the community I see on social media, those that are saying how children are expressing fear, I don't know how it will change us, but I know that this is going to affect us for a very long time.

There is going to be a long healing process for all of us.

And I hope that, if anything, which I have seen in the last few days, community coming together, no matter what your beliefs are, coming together to support those impacted by this horrific violence.

And I hope it doesn't take another act of violence or mass shooting for a community to come together the way they are right now.

- In terms of the community coming together, views of this kind of thing often break down along political lines.

Conservatives often define mass shootings as a mental health issue.

More liberal people say it's about the guns and often favor more restrictions on guns.

Do you think there's any appetite for common ground in trying to bring people toward the middle on things that could reduce the likelihood of these kind of things?

- I do think that this is going to bring many people back to the table to have conversations and be open to others' ideas and opinions.

A lot of people have been impacted and, again, the trickle effect.

So, I think this absolutely opens the door to at least sit down and have more conversations about change and what we can do together.

- Cameras have become increasingly commonplace in American communities, and there's been new footage released of the person who investigators believe is the person responsible for the Brown University shooting.

Does this show a need, in your view, for more cameras in a city like Providence?

- You know, a lot of people feel like they don't want cameras.

"Why are we being watched?"

But when things like this happens, then you hear, "Why isn't there more camera footage?

Why don't we have a better picture of the perpetrator?"

And I myself, personally, I think there should be.

I think there should be more cameras.

You know, I should probably stay away from social media, but just it's hard not to when everyone's talking and you hear different views and different opinions, and that has been a topic about cameras.

It's almost like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.

People don't want them, but then when something happens, it's "Why don't we have them?"

I'm a fan.

If we're all doing what we need to do, then we should have nothing to worry about.

- Rhode Island lawmakers have passed a series of new gun restrictions in recent years, most recently including a law that would restrict the sale, but not the possession, of guns defined as assault weapons.

Do you think these laws have made a difference in Rhode Island?

- I don't know if we are seeing the impact yet.

And I know that, you know, there are folks that are against these laws and they fight against them.

But I myself, personally, and again, it's only personal opinion, I don't understand why anyone needs an assault weapon.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

- People who support gun rights like to argue that the majority of gun owners are law-abiding, and it only takes a small percentage of people to commit terrible crimes like the Brown University shooting.

Do they have a point?

- I mean, in a sense they do, because we also know that with what we see as community violence or what some may see as urban violence.

We know there's a small amount of those that are using guns to cause harm.

But how do we put things in place?

And I think that's what those advocates are fighting for, to have these guidelines and laws in place so that they don't get put into the hands of those that use them to cause harm to others.

- We talked about this a little bit earlier, but I have to ask you again, there are hundreds of millions of guns in America.

Do you see any tangible steps that could be taken to reduce the likelihood of a future mass shooting in Rhode Island?

- You know, I'll probably get some slack for this, but having children and grandchildren, I'm not opposed to having metal detectors in schools, metal detectors in buildings, you know, in the city, hospitals, which they are now.

We can't control when guns get into the hands of those that are going to cause harm.

We just saw that.

We saw this happen right in our backyard.

What could have been in place?

Could it have been metal detectors?

Could there have been stronger security systems in place?

I think those things should be considered.

- How will the institute's role evolve in responding to this situation in the weeks ahead?

- We will continue to support all that have been impacted by this horrible situation.

Staying in contact with the families, we've been going to the hospital regularly, just offering our support and our resources, anything that we can do to assist.

And the thing that happens with the Nonviolence Institute is that once we engage, we never close the door.

You know, so it could be five years from now, even a family, and like I mentioned earlier, all the families and students, they're not from Rhode Island.

So it may even be connecting those individuals, families, and victims to resources in their areas, whether it be counseling or any type of resources that they may need moving forward to heal and to grieve through this process.

- One of the takeaways from this horrible shooting at Brown is a sense for parents that if they send their student to college, if they send their student to school, they just don't know what might happen, even if the odds are relatively low that any one person is going to be affected.

Given that, what is your message to people?

- You know, I want to stay really positive and uplifting, but as I said, as a parent and a grandmother, I too am struggling right now.

But I know that we have to have some sort of normalcy.

We have to continue to move forward.

And for myself and my family, it's to have faith, to continue to move forward, to support one another.

You know, as I said, I think everyone is struggling right now and it's really early to even think about how, even processing, I think there's still a lot of processing.

But I do know that we are very resilient as people, as a community.

And I think that we will heal together and we will figure out ways to keep each other safe, especially our children.

I think that's all of our goal, to make sure that our community is safe.

And I know that the Nonviolence Institute will do our part in any way that we can.

- In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it seemed like Republican politicians in Washington and Democratic politicians in Rhode Island were united.

There was a massive response with more than 400 officers responding, bridging the Providence Police, the state police, police from other Rhode Island communities, the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, the US Marshal Service.

As time went on a little bit, we began to see some more political fissures to emerge.

Do you see something different that you think politicians should be doing in responding to the threat of mass shootings?

- Well, I will say that that is the silver lining in all of this, seeing everyone come together the way that they have.

It's about protecting our children and protecting our country.

You know, personal opinions sometimes get in the way, and I think this, if anything, is showing how we can come together despite our differences, in our differences of opinion, differences in beliefs.

So yeah, I just think that that is the silver lining, that we can come together, and I think that we showed it with this incident that occurred.

- In closing, how do you hang on to hope in a dark time like this?

- It's hard, you know, but what I will say to everyone that is grieving through this process right now is that we also can't allow those that were lost to be lost in vain, to the children that have been injured, for this to just be another mass shooting that we don't talk about anymore, that we are desensitized to.

We have to continue to have these conversations, we have to continue to support those impacted, because this is forever now, and figure out how to come together and lessen the divide.

- Executive Director of the Nonviolence Institute in Providence, Lisa Pina-Warren, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you, Ian.

- Thank you for watching One on One with me, Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past episodes on the YouTube channel for Ocean State Media.

We'll see you next week.

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