Brown University student on surviving two mass shootings

With the holidays just around the corner, 21-year-old Mia Tretta was in her dorm with a friend, studying for her final exams.

Like other Brown University students, she was distraught after receiving a shooting alert from the university's public safety department.

But the difference for her is that she has already experienced this once.

Mia was shot in 2019 Saugus High School mass shooting in Santa Clarita, California.

She told the BBC it destroyed her sense of security and innocence.

“Everyone always tells themselves that it will never be me,” she said.

A 16-year-old boy shot her and four others in the stomach; two of them died, including her best friend.

Mia was a high school senior at the time and spent more than a week in the hospital recovering.

She still has bullet fragments in her abdomen and has had several surgeries for nerve pain and to repair a hole in her eardrum.

A visit to Brown University on the other side of the country in Rhode Island was supposed to get her away from what happened and to feel safe again.

She told herself that at least it wouldn't happen again, until it did.

“Gun violence doesn't matter if you've been shot before, and it doesn't matter what community you're in,” she said.

“This epidemic affects every community.”

Mia now feels a mixture of fear, confusion and anger. Americans, she said, should not accept mass shootings as a fact of life.

Her generation grew up doing active shooter drills in schools, and she's not the only Brown University student to experience a second school shooting.

At a Sunday news conference, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley was asked what could be done to stop the “uniquely American experience” of mass shootings on campuses.

He didn't want to get into the fact that the investigation was ongoing and that the victims were still recovering, but he did share a conversation he had with one of the injured students.

“When I was in the hospital today, one of the students, who showed great courage, literally told me, 'You know, that active shooter drill they made me do in high school, it really helped me in that moment,'” he said.

“It gave me hope and was so sad at the same time. They didn'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 common.”

There is still a heavy police presence on campus even though the lockdown has been lifted.

One student on holiday said: “Our perfect bubble we've been in for so long has just burst.”