THE shooting inside an academic building at Brown University has left two students dead and nine others injured, disrupting final examinations and prompting a major law enforcement response before a suspect was detained in a nearby town, authorities said.
The gun attack occurred on Saturday inside the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building while exams were taking place.
Reuters, On Monday, cited police saying the building’s outer doors had been left unlocked at the time.
The gunman fled the scene shortly after opening fire, triggering a shelter-in-place order across the Ivy League campus and surrounding neighbourhoods.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said on Sunday that a man in his 20s had been taken into custody at a hotel in Coventry, about a 30-minute drive from the campus, and was being held as a “person of interest.”
He declined to release further details but said authorities were not seeking any additional suspects.
City public safety spokesperson Kristy DosReis said investigators expected the individual in custody to be formally charged later on Sunday. Other media outlets, citing unnamed sources, identified the man as 24-year-old Benjamin Erickson, a former resident of Wisconsin.
NBC News reported that Erickson had served as an infantryman in the US Army from May 2021 until November 2024. A military spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Ruth Castro, said, “He has no deployments and left the Army in the rank of specialist.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that the suspect had been located in a hotel room in Coventry after an FBI team specialising in cellular data analysis used geolocation information to track him.
Authorities later lifted shelter-in-place orders at the university and nearby areas, though officials warned residents to expect a heightened police presence across the city.
The shooting, one of nearly 400 mass shootings recorded in the United States this year according to the Gun Violence Archive, stunned the Brown community.
The university cancelled all remaining exams and classes for the rest of the year. On Sunday, the campus was largely deserted as light snowfall covered the city.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said that as of midday on Sunday, not all of the victims’ families had been contacted because some relatives were travelling.
He invited residents to attend a previously planned event to light a Christmas tree and a menorah marking the first night of Hanukkah.
“It is quite clear that if we can come together as a community and shine a little bit of light tonight, I think there's nothing better that we could be doing,” Smiley said.
Smiley said seven of the injured were in stable condition, one remained in critical but stable condition, and another had already been discharged from hospital.
Authorities released security camera footage showing a person of interest dressed in black walking near the engineering building after the shooting.
Providence Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said the individual may have been wearing a mask, though this could not be confirmed.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said nearly all of the victims were students. “This is the day one hopes never happens, and it has,” she told reporters.
Students described scenes of panic and confusion as gunfire echoed through the building.
Ref Bari, a 22-year-old graduate student, said he was inside the Barus & Holley building when he heard what sounded like gunshots.
He fled and sought shelter with other students in a nearby basement apartment. “She trusted me,” Bari said of a student who let him hide with her.
“The only connection between us is we're both students at Brown but beyond that, we don't know each other.”
Teaching assistant Joseph Oduro, 21, told CNN he was inside the classroom that was attacked. “The first couple of gunshots went straight to the chalkboard right where I was standing,” he said. “Who knows, if I didn't duck, maybe I'm not here today.”
He added that a student next to him was shot twice in the leg and was scheduled for surgery.
Another graduate student, Jack DiPrimio, said he initially remained calm during the lockdown because of repeated exposure to active-shooter drills.
“I had faced so many lockdowns in high school and even a few at my undergrad, so I wasn't that worried at first,” he said in a TikTok video after emerging from a five-hour lockdown. “Maybe I was desensitized.”
As investigators continue their work, the shooting has reignited national debate over gun violence and campus safety, even as the Brown University community struggles to come to terms with a tragedy that unfolded in the middle of an ordinary exam day. - December 15, 2025
