PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police renewed their search Monday for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they released a person of interest after determining the evidence pointed in a different direction.
Officials announced the man’s release at news conference late Sunday, marking a setback in the investigation of Saturday’s attack on the Ivy League school’s campus. It also added to mounting questions about the shooting and investigation, including an apparent lack of video evidence and whether the focus on the person of interest might have given the killer more time to escape justice.
Providence residents and students were relieved early Sunday when officials announced they had detained a man at a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the attack and lifted a lockdown. But that relief was short-lived, as Mayor Brett Smiley said hours later that investigators didn’t know whether the gunman was still in the area.
Colin Moussette, who has friends at Brown and is considering enrolling next fall, said he felt uneasy knowing that the suspect has not been caught.
“How someone got away, like in the middle of the day is, to me, not only heartbreaking but very concerning,” he said while visiting the campus Monday. “How they got access to the building is concerning.”
The last known sighting of the gunman was minutes after shooting. Authorities released a short clip of video of the suspect walking away from the scene, but his face wasn’t visible.
No current suspect
The release of the person of interest left law enforcement without a known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble their efforts by asking neighborhood residents and businesses for video surveillance that might help identify the attacker.
“We have a murderer out there,” state Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
Authorities said Sunday that one of the reasons they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown’s engineering building doesn’t have many cameras.
The mayor said there have been no credible threats of further violence since the shooting, and the city’s schools were open Monday.
Colleges and universities, including in the Providence and some Ivy League schools, are increasing security in the wake of the shootings. Yale said extra security would also be in place for Hanukkah celebrations.
On Sunday morning, officials took into custody a person of interest at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles from Providence. Two people familiar with the matter identified that individual as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, though authorities never released his name.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another, and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” Neronha said.
He said there was some evidence that pointed to the man authorities detained, but “that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed. And over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction.”
“Right now, we don’t have any evidence to suggest that it was more than that individual,” Smiley said Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Despite an enhanced police presence at Brown, officials are not recommending another shelter-in-place order like the one that followed the Saturday afternoon shooting, when hundreds of officers searched for the attacker and urged students and staff to remain indoors.
