Mass shooter manhunt at Brown resets after detainee is released

A manhunt for the shooter who killed two students during a rampage at Brown University entered its third day after authorities released an earlier person of interest.

Investigators determined that “evidence now points in a different direction,” away from the person they had previously detained, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said at a press conference late Sunday. That person had been brought into custody at a hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles from Brown’s campus.

Federal, state and local authorities are working to develop leads and are asking the public to contact them with any information about the shooting.

“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said, adding that authorities believe the city remains safe.

The Saturday afternoon violence interrupted the second day of finals on Brown’s campus, shattering the calm in a study session in the Barus & Holley engineering building. The 11,000-student institution alerted an active-shooter situation on campus at about 4:20 p.m. and ordered the campus community to lock down. The shelter-in-place order for the campus was lifted on Sunday.

In addition to the two fatalities, nine people were injured, including one who remains in critical but stable condition, officials said. One was discharged and the other survivors are in stable condition. They declined to identify the victims until all the families had been notified.

It’s the Ivy League school’s first encounter with mass violence. Students recounted barricading themselves in their rooms, waiting out the shelter-in-place orders by huddling together in the dark for hours as a manhunt ensued for the suspect. Brown sent students home and called off final exams, classes and assignments for the fall semester.

Gunnar S., a freshman from Virginia who declined to give his last name, had attended two earlier study sessions for an upcoming final exam, but had decided to skip a third one on Saturday where the shooting occurred.

Most of the students in the class were freshmen, he said, and friends were sending text messages to check on their colleagues’ well-being. Some students didn’t respond for hours because they had left their phones as they fled for safety, he said.

For his part, Gunnar said he hid under his bed with his roommate in the dark until 3 a.m. He says he wants to go home as soon as possible and doesn’t feel safe being on campus.

Benjamin, a Brown junior who also declined to give his last name, was packing up his car amid the snowfall on Sunday to head to his grandparents’ home nearby before making his way to Louisville, Kentucky. His house is close to the engineering school where the shooting occurred, and he said he and his housemates barricaded themselves in one of their rooms. He stayed there until midnight.

Police cars blocked off streets near the location of the shooting and caution tape encircled the building, with some fluttering in the winter wind.

But there were also signs of normalcy on Sunday as a blanket of snow covered the campus: Three students were having a snowball fight on the quad, while others were building a snowman on the university’s main green.

“We continue to be in mourning as a community about the tragic loss of life,” Brown University President Christina Paxson said in a statement Sunday. “I am deeply moved by all the students who opened their homes and their arms to welcome friends into their dorms and other residences while we transported others to local hotels.”

Brown Provost Francis J. Doyle III said in a separate statement Sunday afternoon that all remaining in-person exams for the fall semester will be canceled, with the exception of tests for the medical school and the MBA program. Students may elect to accept a final grade based on their work submitted before Saturday or change their grade option to “satisfactory/no credit.” Students can still submit previously assigned final papers, projects or take-home exam for either option.

Doyle also told students in an earlier statement Sunday that they can leave campus if they are able, but essential staff must remain.

“In the immediate aftermath of these devastating events, we recognize that learning and assessment are significantly hindered in the short term and that many students and others will wish to depart campus,” Doyle wrote. “Students are free to leave if they are able. Students who remain will have access to on-campus services and support.”

Brown’s campus will remain open until Dec. 22 and three of the dining halls will operate on a normal schedule, Doyle wrote later Sunday.

Beyond the campus, parents, relatives and friends grappled with the aftermath. Jim Esposito, the president of Citadel Securities and a Brown trustee, wrote in a LinkedIn post that his son was “meant to be in the very Economics classroom where the shooting occurred, but at the last moment, he chose to study on his own.” He added, “That reality cuts deeply.”

Earlier, Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee told Bloomberg News there was an “all-out search” involving every level of government, adding he had spoken to President Donald Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel. He asked residents to reach out to local police if they have information about the shooter.

“I want to just pay my respects to the people, unfortunately, two are no longer with us at Brown University, nine injured, and two are looking down on us right now from heaven,” Trump said at a holiday reception at the White House Sunday. “To the nine injured: Get well fast; and to the families of those two that are no longer with us: I pay my deepest regards and respects from the United States of America.”

The external doors to the building where the shooting happened were unlocked at the time of the shooting.

Rhode Island has one of the lowest rates of death by firearms in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The last deadly mass shooting in Rhode Island was in 2013, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit information aggregator.

Before Saturday, there had only been two homicides in Providence this year, Smiley said in an interview.

“I don’t know of a time something like this has ever happened in Providence,” he said. The city has held training recently on active shooter situations, including a joint exercise between Brown and Providence police about six months ago to prepare for proper coordination.

“When you live in a town like this, you don’t think this is going to happen even as you prepare for it,” Smiley said.

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—With assistance from Myles Miller.