PROVIDENCE (AP) – Police on Monday released new video images of a masked man they believe shot and killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others on Dec. 13, showing a stocky individual in dark clothing walking in the Hope Street area about two hours before the shooting.
The grainy images showed the suspect’s light skin color, but other potentially identifying details are obscured by a dark hat and partial face covering.
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The FBI also announced a $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.
“It is all hands on deck,” Providence Police Col. Oscar L. Perez Jr. said Monday night at a press briefing releasing the new videos and calling for the public’s help in identifying the shooter.
The new videos were identified after police released another person of interest in the case after determining the evidence pointed in a different direction.
Officials announced the man’s release at a news conference late Sunday, marking a setback in the investigation of the attack on the Ivy League school’s campus. It also added to mounting questions about the shooting and investigation, including an apparent lack of clear 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 initially 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 P. 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,” R.I. Attorney General Peter F. 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 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.
The shooting happened at a busy time on campus
The shooting occurred as final exams were underway at Brown, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious schools.
The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, getting off 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, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity.
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom.
The attack set off hours of chaos on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods, as hundreds of officers searched for the shooter. During the lockdown, which wasn’t lifted until Sunday, after the person of interest was taken into custody, many students barricaded there rooms and hid behind furniture and bookshelves.
One of the nine wounded students has been released from the hospital, Brown University President Christina H. Paxson said Sunday. Seven others were in critical but stable condition, and one was in critical condition.
The mayor said he visited some wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope and gratitude. “The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me, is frankly pretty overwhelming,” Smiley said.
(RECASTS top five paragraphs with details from press conference, including new video images. Providence Business News contributed to this report.)
