A person of interest was detained Sunday morning after a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island on Saturday that killed two students and injured several others.
The individual was found in a hotel room in the nearby town of Coventry, according to authorities. FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post to social media that the agency’s Boston field office worked with U.S. Marshals and local police to identify and detain the person, about whom officials did not provide additional information other than that he is in his 20’s.
Providence Police Commander Timothy O’Hara said earlier that authorities had not found the weapon used in the shooting. “We just know that it was a firearm,” O’Hara said. Law enforcement officials have also not identified a motive for the shooting.
Police said they do not know how the suspect entered the building but that he exited on the Hope Street side of the complex.
The “shelter in place” order at the college issued around the time of the shooting was lifted Sunday morning.
In a Sunday morning update, university officials said of the students injured in the shooting, seven are in critical but stable condition, while one student remains in critical condition. Another one of the hospitalized students has been released. Mayor Brett Smiley said he met with some of the victims, whose names have not been released, and that “they showed courage, hope, gratitude.” “The past 24 hours really have been unimaginable — it’s a tragedy that no university community is ever ready for,” Brown University President Christina Paxson said in a statement Sunday. “While we always prepare for major crises, we also pray such a day never comes.” Paxson announced that all remaining undergraduate, graduate and medical school classes, exams and papers or projects for the Fall 2025 semester have been put on hold. The college’s final examination period began on Dec. 12 and was scheduled to end on Saturday.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian. Recommended
The shooting took place inside a first-floor classroom in Brown’s Barus & Holley building, an engineering and physics building. Police were alerted to the gunshots at 4:05 p.m. Several thousand students from the school were transported overnight by law enforcement to established safe zones.
