Home Nonprofit & Education Education Former Providence police chief named head of security at Brown University

Former Providence police chief named head of security at Brown University

By

Veer Mudambi

-

04/08/2026

Clements — HUGH T. CLEMENTS Jr. was appointed vice president for public safety and emergency management and chief of police at Brown University. /PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

PROVIDENCE – Former city police leader Hugh T. Clements Jr. has been named vice president for public safety and emergency management and chief of police at Brown University. Clements, who served as Providence police chief from 2011 to 2023, stepped into the role at Brown on an interim basis on Dec. 22. He has already

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PROVIDENCE – Former city police leader Hugh T. Clements Jr. has been named vice president for public safety and emergency management and chief of police at Brown University.

Clements, who served as Providence police chief from 2011 to 2023, stepped into the role at Brown on an interim basis on Dec. 22. He has already instituted several security enhancements in response to the Dec. 13 shooting, which claimed the lives of two students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, and injured nine others.

Suspected shooter Claudio Neves Valente, 48, who is also suspected of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, was a former Brown student and Portuguese national. He was found dead on Dec. 18 at a New Hampshire storage facility from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“For 38 years I worked in partnership with community leaders and residents across Providence to make my native city a safer and better place to live,” Clements said in a press release from Brown. “The opportunity to do the same at Brown, leading public safety and emergency management for this extraordinary institution and community, is one I embrace with a pledge to ensure this campus is safe, secure and welcoming.”

Clements succeeds Rodney Chatman, who left the university Tuesday after a settlement proposal with Brown was approved in R.I. Workers’ Compensation Court. Chatman was placed on administrative leave pending two external reviews commissioned by the university following the mass shooting in December. “Chief Clements brings an extraordinary combination of Rhode Island law enforcement leadership, national policy experience and a deep commitment to community-centered policing that position him to effectively lead public safety efforts at Brown,” Brown University President Christina Paxson and Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration Sarah Latham said in a written statement. “Over an accomplished four-decade career, he has consistently advanced innovative, data-driven strategies that build trust while enhancing safety.” Veer Mudambi is the special projects editor for the Providence Business News. He can be reached at mudambi@pbn.com.