A person of interest is in custody after two people were killed and multiple were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island yesterday evening.
Police confirmed one person is in custody, as of 6am Sunday morning. Mayor Brett Smiley said that the people of Providence should breathe a ‘small sigh of relief’ today.
The first 911 call reporting shots fired at Brown’s prestigious engineering building was made at 4.05pm on Saturday afternoon, in the midst of students’ end of semester exam season.
Late on Saturday night, police released a short clip of a person of interest walking as he turns the corner on Waterman Street.
The same man in the video – wearing a full black outfit – was detained amid a flurry of police activity around 3am at a hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, CNN reports.
It was at that unnamed hotel that the suspect was arrested.
Terrified students at the Ivy League school were made to shelter in place for hours overnight. That has now been lifted, as of 7am Sunday morning.
Mayor Smiley confirmed at a press conference at 7am on Sunday that there will be an enhanced police presence in Providence today for the ‘comfort and reassurance of our community’ as the investigation continues.
He confirmed that there were nine people injured and two fatalities in the mass shooting, and that tips from the local community were crucial with making the arrest in the early hours of the morning.
Smiley gave an update on the injured – confirming that seven are in stable condition, one is in critical but stable condition, and one has been discharged from hospital.
All eight who are still in hospital are students at Brown, the mayor confirmed.
‘The people of Providence should breathe a little easier this morning,’ the mayor said, adding that he is confident to lift the shelter in place this morning.
The mayor became emotional as he spoke on Sunday: ‘This is an incredibly upsetting and emotional time, for Providence, for Brown, for all of us.
‘This is not something we should have to train for.’
Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez confirmed that the person they have in custody matches the brief description police gave of their suspected gunman – male, wearing all black, and possibly in his 30s.
Perez did not go as far to call the detainee a suspect, but he said law enforcement will now be coordinating with prosecutors to collect evidence and conduct interviews.
The first reports of shots fired were issued just after 4pm inside a first-floor classroom of the Barus and Holley Engineering Building, where students had gathered to prepare for final exams.
Smiley said the gunman ‘walked right into’ the building because doors were left unlocked for students taking the tests.
Police arrived around 4.22pm and a huge law enforcement response descended on the scene, but by the time officers swept the building the suspect had escaped onto the adjacent Hope Street.
It was during this getaway that investigators captured the chilling surveillance footage showing the suspect walking briskly away from the carnage left behind.
Chaos overwhelmed the campus as students barricaded doors and desperately texted loved ones, with the campus issuing an emergency alert warning anyone in the area to ‘RUN, HIDE, FIGHT’ if they encounter the killer.
Social media was swept with images from terrified students and faculty, showing desks, chairs and possessions pushed up against doors.
Brown University student Wayne McNamara said he saw two people bleeding outside his dorm room, around a block from where the shooting was reported.
‘People started running and I sprinted downstairs and back outside, took my clothes off and tried my best to stop the bleeding on the two kids by wrapping my clothes around their wounds,’ he told the Boston Globe.
McNamara said one of the people shot was ‘bleeding severely,’ while the other was ‘panting and [was] shot around his shoulder.’
Sophomore Zoe Weissman, who survived the Parkland school shooting in February 2018, described her horror at being plunged back into the chaos of a shooting.
‘I think mentally, you know, I feel like I’m 12 again. This just feels exactly like how I felt in 2018,’ she said while speaking on MS NOW. ‘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.’
This is a breaking news story.
