The manhunt for the mass shooter who opened fire at an exam room at one of America’s top universities continued into its fifth day on Wednesday, with police making no apparent progress in identifying a suspect or a motive.
The only new information police provided at a media briefing Wednesday was a witness who investigators believe approached the suspected shooter on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
The shooting occurred on Saturday when a man armed with a rifle stormed into a building on the Ivy League campus as students were taking exams. The man fired. Kill two students and escape.
The Providence Police Department wrote on
“They may have information relevant to the investigation,” Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said at a news conference Wednesday.
Perez said the unnamed person was “close enough” to the suspect “that we felt we needed to talk to them.”
Perez also called on online users not to share AI-generated images related to the shooting.
The two students killed Saturday were Ella Cook, vice president of the Brown Republican Association, and Mohammad Aziz Umurzokov, a native of Uzbekistan who had hoped to become a neurosurgeon.
One survivor is in critical but stable condition, five are in stable condition and two have been released from the hospital, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a briefing.
Authorities initially detained a man in connection with the shooting but later released him.
None of the university’s 1,200 security cameras are linked to police surveillance systems, and its security arrangements have since come into question.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media: “Why do Brown have so few security cameras? There is no excuse.”
The university issued a lengthy statement in response to criticism, saying its security cameras did not cover every part of the more than 250 buildings on campus.
There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot to death.
Attempts to restrict access to guns remain facing political gridlock.
GW/MSP
