PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Authorities said Thursday they are investigating links between a mass shooting at Brown University last weekend and a shooting two days later that killed a professor at another elite school near Boston.
That’s according to three people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Two of them said investigators have identified a person of interest in the shooting and are actively searching for that person.
Attackers at Brown University killed two students and wounded nine others in a classroom in the school’s engineering building on Saturday before escaping.
About 50 miles (80 kilometers) north, MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro was shot to death Monday night at his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline. The 47-year-old physicist and nuclear fusion scientist died in hospital the next day.
The FBI previously said it was not aware of any connection between the cases.
How is the Brown investigation going?
It’s been nearly a week since the Brown shooting. There have been other high-profile attacks where it took days or longer to arrest or find those responsible, including last year’s brazen killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO on a New York City sidewalk, which took five days.
But Providence’s frustration is growing as those behind the attack managed to escape and clear images of their faces have yet to emerge.
“People don’t get discouraged because they understand that not all cases can be resolved quickly,” state Attorney General Peter Neronha said at a news conference Wednesday.
Authorities have scoured the area for evidence and implored the public to check any phone or security footage they may have from the week before the attack, believing the gunman may have spotted the scene in advance. But they didn’t feel they were close to catching the gunman.
Investigators released multiple videos from the hours and minutes before and after the shooting, and police said the person in the video matched witnesses’ descriptions of the gunman. In the video, the person is standing, walking, and even running on the street outside campus, but always wearing a mask or turning his head.
Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack occurred in an older part of the engineering building where there are few, if any, cameras. Investigators believe the gunman entered and exited through a door that faces a residential street that borders the campus, which may explain why cameras owned by Brown did not capture footage of the man.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said Wednesday that the city is doing “everything possible” to keep residents safe. However, he acknowledged that it was “a scary time for the city” and families may be having difficult conversations about whether to stay in the city over the holidays.
Asked if the city was safe, Smiley said: “We’re doing everything we can to reassure people, provide comfort, and that’s the best answer I can give to that difficult question.”
While it’s not unheard of for someone to disappear after such a high-profile shooting, it’s rare.
What can be learned from past investigations?
In such targeted, highly publicized attacks, the shooter typically kills himself or is killed or arrested by police, said retired FBI agent and mass shooting expert Katherine Schwert. When they escape, the search may take some time.
“The best thing they can do is what they’re doing now, which is continue to put together all the facts they have as quickly as possible,” Schwedt said. “In fact, the best hope for a solution comes from the public.”
In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took investigators four days to track down the two brothers who carried out the bombing. In a 2023 case, Army Reservist Robert Card was found dead of an apparent suicide two days after killing 18 people and wounding 13 others in Lewiston, Maine.
The man accused of killing conservative politician Charlie Kirk in September turned himself in about a day and a half after the attack on the Utah Valley University campus. Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last year and was arrested at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s five days later.
Felipe Rodriguez, a retired New York police detective and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it was clear the gunman was learning from other people arrested.
“Most of the time, an active shooter will go in and he’ll try to cause what we call maximum carnage, maximum damage,” Rodriguez said. “At this point, they were actually trying to escape. They were actually using an effective method to evade police that I’ve never seen before.”
Investigators said the man they are looking for is about 5 feet 8 inches (173 centimeters) tall and has a stocky build. The attacker’s motive remains a mystery, but authorities said Wednesday there was no evidence to identify a specific person.
MIT mourns the death of a respected professor
Loureiro, who is married, joined MIT in 2016 and last year was named director of MIT’s Center for Plasma Science and Fusion, where he works to advance clean energy technologies and other research. The center is one of the school’s largest laboratories, with more than 250 employees working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He is a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.
He grew up in Viseu, central Portugal, studied in Lisbon and then earned his PhD in London, according to MIT. Before joining MIT, he was a researcher at a nuclear fusion research institute in Lisbon, the university said.
“He shone brightly as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader and was universally admired for his eloquent, compassionate approach,” Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously directed MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, told the campus publication.
Loureiro has said he hopes his work will shape the future.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that MIT is the place to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,” Loureiro said when he was named head of the Plasma Science Laboratory last year. “Fusion energy will change the course of human history.”
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This story has been updated to remove the reference to MIT being an Ivy League school.
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Richer and Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pa., and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
