A person of interest detained after a mass shooting at Brown University that killed two students and injured nine is being released after the investigation took law enforcement authorities in a “different direction,” officials said Sunday night.
The disclosure, made at a hastily convened late night news conference, represents a stunning turn of events in an investigation into killings that rattled the Ivy League campus, and came more than 12 hours after officials had announced that they had taken a person into custody.
The Rhode Island attorney general, Peter Neronha, said of the man who was detained earlier, there is “no basis to consider him a person of interest.”
The release of the lone person of interest leaves law enforcement without any known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble efforts in the investigation by canvassing for video surveillance that could help pinpoint the killer’s identity.
“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community,” Mayor Brett Smiley said.
The FBI director, Kash Patel, said on Sunday that the agency activated its “cellular analysis survey team to provide critical geolocation capabilities”, adding that law enforcement was able to detain the person of interest “based off a lead” by Providence police.
The person of interest had been taken into custody about 17 miles from Providence, at a hotel in Coventry, according to reports. Providence police said at the time that they were not searching for anyone else in connection with the shooting.
Map depicting areas in Providence, Rhode Island near shooting
Law enforcement often uses the term “person of interest” to refer to someone whom they consider important to a criminal investigation – but whom there is not enough evidence to consider a suspect and accuse of having committed the underlying offense.
Saturday’s shooting at the Ivy League institution occurred during final exams at the campus. The attack erupted in the engineering building, and the shooter initially managed to flee.
Hundreds of police officers scoured Brown as well as nearby neighborhoods while poring over surveillance video in search of the shooter, who opened fire inside a classroom.
One of the people wounded in the shooting has been discharged from the hospital, one victim remains in critical but stable condition and seven others remain in stable condition, police said on Sunday.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that Kendall Turner, a recent graduate now at Brown, was critically wounded. The school said her parents were with her.
“Our school community is rallying around Kendall, her classmates, and her loved ones, and we will continue to offer our full support in the days ahead,” the school said.
Speaking to Ocean State Media, Brown economics professor Rachel Friedberg said that the attack occurred during a final exam review session for her class.
Friedberg, who was not present during the attack, learned of the details from a teaching assistant who was leading the session.
People gather for a candlelight vigil on Sunday following the shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“The room has stadium seating with doors that enter at the top,” Friedberg recounted. “He said that the shooter came in the doors, yelled something – he couldn’t remember what he yelled – and started shooting.
“Students started to scramble to try to get away from the shooter, trying to get lower down in the stadium seating, and people got shot … I don’t know if they’re the only ones who got shot or not.”
Identified by the New York Times as Joseph Oduro, the 21-year old teaching assistant said that upon entering the lecture hall, the gunman shouted something. Oduro said that he and the other witnesses “have been trying to piece together” what the gunman was saying.
“The students in the middle were impacted the most,” Oduro added. “Many of them were lying there and they were not moving. I have no idea how many.”
Meanwhile, one student, 18-year-old Spencer Yang, described being shot in the leg while helping another student as they stayed hidden.
“To keep him conscious, I just started talking to him so he didn’t close his eyes and fall asleep,” Yang, a first-year student, told the New York Times from a Rhode Island hospital where he is currently recovering from his leg wound.
“I handed him my water … He wasn’t able to respond that well. He was just there nodding and making noise,” Yang said, adding: “He’s stable now, thankfully.”
Among those at Brown during Saturday’s attack was 20-year-old Zoe Weissman, who had survived the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 victims.
“So … my friend called me, I’m in my dorm and she asked if I was in Barus and Holley, which is the building where the shooting occurred, and I told her, no,” Weisman told MS NOW.
Flowers rest in front of the Barus and Holley engineering building on the day after the shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Photograph: Taylor Coester/Reuters
She added: “And I’m actually from Parkland, and I survived the shooting there. And, so, I was like, I just – that’s where my brain immediately went. And I was like, tell me if there’s a shooting and they confirmed for me. And so ever since then, I’ve just been staying in my room. I’ve been on the phone with my family, my friends, and just keeping updated.”
Weissman attended a middle school next to the site of the 2018 Parkland mass murder.
“I think mentally, you know, I feel like I’m 12 again,” she said. “This just feels exactly like how I felt in 2018. But honestly, I’m really angry. I’m really angry that this is happening to me all over again, and I’m just in shock.”
Providence leaders on Sunday warned residents there would temporarily be a heavier police presence in the community. And many local businesses announced that they are closed for now, citing the shock and heartbreak caused by news of the deadly shooting.
“Everybody’s reeling, and we have a lot of recovery ahead of us,” Brown president Christina Paxson said at the news conference.
A shelter in place order connected to Saturday’s shooting was lifted at 5.42am Sunday. However, a message to the university community warned that access to certain areas of campus will remain limited. And the message warned that people who leave certain buildings, including apartments, within a police perimeter would be “unable to return”.
“It is important to follow instructions from law enforcement at all times,” the alert said.
On Sunday morning Paxson announced that all remaining classes, exams, papers and projects were cancelled for the rest of the semester.
“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,” Paxson wrote.
Saturday’s violence at Brown brought the number of mass shootings in the US for the year to at least 389, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Saturday was the 347th day of the year.
Providence mayor Brent Smileys speak during a press conference near the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Sunday. Photograph: Bing Guan/AFP/Getty Images
The Gun Violence Archive, a non-partisan resource, defines mass shootings as ones in which four or more victims are wounded or killed.
Such bloodshed occurring at Brown reignited the US’s ongoing debate on whether the federal government should implement more substantial gun control in response to the perennially high numbers of mass shootings reported in the country.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator, drew parallels to the Sandy Hook shooting in his state of Connecticut, which killed 26 people.
“What I know is that a community never, ever recovers from a shooting like this,” he told CNN on Sunday, the 13th anniversary of the elementary school shooting.
He went on to call for stricter gun laws, saying states with them have lower rates of violence than those with lax restrictions.
Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat and Baptist minister, echoed similar sentiments to NBC on Sunday.
“I can tell you that as a pastor who has presided over many funerals, I don’t think that there’s any pain deeper than when nature is violently reversed and rather than children burying their parents, the parent has to bury the child,” Warnock said. “And so we pray prayers for these families. But we have to pray not only with our lips – but with our action.
“Any nation that tolerates this kind of violence year after year, decade after decade in random places on our college and school campuses without doing all that we can to stop it is broken and in need of moral repair.”
Donald Trump also paid his tributes, with the president saying on Sunday: “Brown University, great school … really one of the greatest schools anywhere in the world.
“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.”
