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Student with past trauma faces new campus shooting scare
Mia Tretta, a 21-year-old Brown University student, experienced a wave of fear and déjà vu when the campus issued an active shooter alert last week. For her, the threat was not abstract-she survived the 2019 mass shooting at Saugus High School in California, where she was shot in the stomach and lost her best friend.
A history of violence
Tretta was 16 when a classmate opened fire at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, wounding five and killing two, including her closest friend. She spent over a week in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound, and still carries bullet fragments in her stomach. Multiple surgeries later, she continues to manage nerve pain and hearing damage from the attack.
Moving across the country to attend Brown in Rhode Island was supposed to be a fresh start-away from the memories of that day. But last week's lockdown shattered that fragile sense of security.
"Everyone always tells themselves it'll never be me. Gun violence doesn't care if you've already been shot before, and it doesn't care what community you're in. It's an epidemic that touches every single community."
Mia Tretta, Brown University student
Campus reactions: Fear, anger, and resignation
Tretta is not alone in her experience. Other Brown students, who grew up practicing active shooter drills in schools, now find themselves living through a second such incident. The emotional toll is compounded by a sense of inevitability.
At a Sunday press conference, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley shared a conversation he had with one of the injured students, who credited high school active shooter drills with helping them respond during the crisis. While the mayor acknowledged the grim necessity of such training, he also expressed frustration at its ubiquity.
"When I was at the hospital today, one of the students that showed tremendous courage literally said to me, 'You know that active shooter drill they made me do in high school? It actually helped me in the moment.' Which at the same time provided me hope, and was so sad. They shouldn't have to do active shooter drills, but it helped, and the reason it helped and the reason we do these drills is because it's so damn frequent."
Brett Smiley, Mayor of Providence
Aftermath and lingering unease
Though the lockdown at Brown has been lifted, a visible police presence remains on campus. Students preparing to leave for the holidays described a collective sense of disillusionment.
"Our perfect bubble, that we've been in for so long, just shattered," one student told reporters as they departed. The sentiment reflects a broader reality for American students: school shootings are no longer an anomaly but a recurring threat.
A generation shaped by gun violence
For Tretta and her peers, active shooter drills and lockdowns have become a routine part of education. She rejects the normalization of such violence, arguing that Americans should not accept mass shootings as an unavoidable fact of life.
"It's not just about the physical scars," she said. "It's the way it changes how you see the world-knowing that nowhere is truly safe."
