Authors: Maria Alejandra Cardona and Rich McKay
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec 15 (Reuters) – Authorities on Monday resumed their hunt for the gunman who killed two students and wounded seven others at Brown University over the weekend after releasing a man who was being held as a “person of interest” in Sunday’s shootings.
While officials said Sunday night they were resuming their search for the suspect, they said there was no credible threat to the community and that they would not reimpose previously lifted shelter-in-place orders for the campus and surrounding areas.
Surveillance video released by police showed the possible gunman dressed in black walking near the building where the attack occurred, but his face was not visible.
The gunman opened fire on students in a classroom in Brown University’s Burroughs and Hawley Engineering and Physics Building before fleeing while the exterior door of the classroom was unlocked during an exam, according to police.
At a news conference Sunday night, officials said there was enough evidence to warrant detaining the unnamed suspect, who is in his 20s.
But Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters the investigation was going in a “different direction” without providing further details. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said investigators have determined “there is no basis to believe he is a suspect, so … he will be released.”
A mass shooting has rocked the campus of Brown University, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the United States. The Ivy League school with nearly 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students canceled exams and classes for the rest of the year, and the campus was quiet on Sunday as light snow blanketed the city.
Tributes to shooting victims
The two students killed were Ella Cook, a sophomore from Mountain Brook, Ala., and Mohammad Aziz Umurzokov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, according to statements from multiple officials.
According to the New York Republican Club’s X post, Cook is the vice president of the school’s College Republicans and “a leading spokesperson for the Brown College Republicans.” Her LinkedIn profile includes jobs as an ice cream server at Mountain Brook Creamery and as a project assistant in New York.
“Wesley and I join the Mountain Brook community and the entire state of Alabama in mourning the heartbreaking loss of Ella Cook, who was murdered on the campus of Brown University over the weekend,” U.S. Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama wrote in a statement with her husband, Wesley.
Umurzokov was an aspiring neurosurgeon and “the kindest person,” according to a GoFundMe campaign started by his family.
“He never hesitated to lend a helping hand to those in need and was the kindest person our family knew,” the family wrote. “Our family is devastated by this loss.”
He graduated from Midlothian High School in Virginia this spring, The Washington Post reported. In a statement, U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan Jonathan Hernick mourned the “loss of a bright future.”
The students were shocked
Ref Bari, a 22-year-old graduate student at Brown University, said he was inside the Barus & Holley building when he heard a series of loud pops that appeared to be gunshots.
Barry ran out of the building and asked another student running down the street if he could hide with her and her friends, and she agreed. They returned to her basement apartment and hid in the bathroom.
“She trusted me,” he said. “The only connection between us was that we were both students at Brown University, but other than that, we didn’t know each other.”
Joseph Oduro, a 21-year-old teaching assistant, told CNN that the classroom he was in was attacked.
“The first few shots were fired right at the blackboard where I was standing,” Oduro said. “Who knows, if I hadn’t ducked, maybe I wouldn’t be here today.”
He said a student next to him had been shot twice in the leg and would undergo surgery on Sunday.
(Reporting by Maria Alejandra Cardona in Providence and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Helen Coster and Nathan Lane; Writing by Steve Gorman and Joseph Akers; Editing by Bill Burkrot)
