INVESTIGATORS probing the mass shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island that killed two students and wounded nine others said late on Sunday that a man previously detained as a person of interest will be released from custody, conceding that the inquiry has shifted and the suspect has not yet been identified.
Reuters, on Monday, cited Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and state and local officials telling a late-night news conference that the man taken into custody earlier in the day would be freed, saying the investigation was now heading in a “different direction”.
“We have not yet solved this case, but I am confident we are going to do that in the near future,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez had said at a midday briefing that a man in his 20s was being held in connection with Saturday’s shooting but offered no details. Officials later declined to explain why he had been detained in the first place.
“There was a quantum of evidence which justified detaining this person as a person of interest,” Neronha said, adding that investigators subsequently concluded there was “no basis to believe that he's a person of interest, so ... he's being released.”
Authorities said they now believe the individual they are seeking is an unidentified person captured in surveillance footage released over the weekend.
Earlier on Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X that the person of interest had been detained in a hotel room in Coventry, about a 30-minute drive from the Brown campus. Patel said an FBI team specialising in cellular data analysis had used geolocation information to track the suspect.
Despite acknowledging that the gunman was still presumed to be at large, officials said on Sunday night that they would not reinstate the shelter-in-place order that had earlier confined the campus and surrounding neighbourhoods.
The shooting, which took place in a classroom inside Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, sent shockwaves through the Ivy League university and the wider Providence community. Officials said the attacker fled after opening fire while exams were under way, at a time when the building’s outer doors had been left unlocked.
Authorities on Saturday released a short video clip showing a person dressed in black walking near the engineering building. Providence Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said the individual may have been wearing a mask, though officials were not certain.
Seven of the injured students were in stable condition, Smiley said. One remained in critical but stable condition, and another had been discharged from hospital.
Smiley said that as of midday on Sunday, authorities had not yet reached all of the victims’ families because some relatives were travelling. He urged residents to attend a previously planned community gathering to light a Christmas tree and a menorah to mark 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.
Brown University cancelled exams and classes for the remainder of the year. On Sunday, the campus was largely deserted as light snow fell across the city.
Brown President Christina Paxson said that all or nearly all of the victims were students.
“This is the day one hopes never happens, and it has,” she said.
The attack was the latest of nearly 400 mass shootings in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. - December 15, 2025
