PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A person of interest detained after a Brown University shooting that killed two students and injured nine will be released after law enforcement authorities determined there was no basis to keep the individual in custody, officials said Sunday night.
The disclosure, made at a hastily convened late night news conference, represents a dramatic setback in an investigation into killings that set off hours of chaos on the Ivy League campus and unravels progress that authorities thought they had made earlier in the day when they detained a man at a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the attack.
No current suspect in deadly shooting
The release of the lone person of interest leaves law enforcement without any known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble efforts in the investigation by canvassing for video surveillance that could help pinpoint the killer’s identity.
“We have a murderer out there,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha, while Providence Mayor Brett Smiley acknowledged that ”the news is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community.”
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 shooter and urged students and staff to shelter in place. The lockdown, which stretched into the night, was lifted early Sunday, but authorities had not yet released information about a potential motive.
On Sunday morning, officials took into custody a person of interest at a Hampton Inn hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence. Two people familiar with the matter identified that individual as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, though authorities never released the individual’s 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 that “certainly there was some degree of evidence that pointed to the individual” who’d been taken into custody 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.”
Shooting occurred during busy period on campus
The shooting occurred during one of the busiest moments of the academic calendar, as final exams were underway. Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers and projects for the semester and told students they could leave campus, underscoring the scale of the disruption and the gravity of the attack.
As police scoured the area for the shooter, many students remained barricaded in rooms while others hid behind furniture and bookshelves. One video showed students in a library shaking and wincing as they heard loud bangs just before police entered the room to clear the building.
University President Christina Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital.
“They are amazing and they’re supporting each other,” she said at a news conference. “There’s just a lot of gratitude.”
The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, firing more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told AP. Two handguns were recovered when the person of interest was taken into custody and authorities also found two loaded 30-round magazines, the official said. One of the firearms was equipped with a laser sight that projects a dot to aid in targeting, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
One student of the nine wounded students had been released from the hospital, said Paxson. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was critically wounded. The school said her parents were with her.
“Our school community is rallying around Kendall, her classmates, and her loved ones, and we will continue to offer our full support in the days ahead,” the school said.
Community comes together to remember victims
On Sunday evening, city leaders, residents and others gathered at a park to honor the victims. The event originally was scheduled as a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah lighting.
“For those who know at least bit of the Hanukkah story, it is quite clear that if we can come together as a community to shine a little bit of light tonight, there’s nothing better that we can be doing,” Mayor Brett Smiley said at a news conference earlier in the day.
Smiley said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. One told him that active shooting drills done in high school proved helpful.
“The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he said.
Exams were underway when the shooting began
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom at the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.
Engineering design exams were underway. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Smiley said.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and into a nearby building where she waited for hours.
Surveillance video released by police showed a suspect, dressed in black, walking from the scene.
Former ‘Survivor’ contestant left the building just before shooting
Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.
The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.
Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.
“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as officers surrounded his dorm.
Brown, the seventh-oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges, with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students.
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Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington, D.C.
