Brown University shooter manhunt continues as anxiety grows after person of interest released: Live updates

Mia Tretta, 21, a junior at the university, survived a gunshot wound to the stomach in 2019 when a boy began firing at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Her best friend, Dominic Blackwell, was killed.

Tretta said she spent Saturday evening locked down in her dorm room, learning that two students were killed and nine others were injured in a mass shooting at the Rhode Island university.

Investigators believe a lone shooter carried out Saturday’s attack at Brown University, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley told ABC News.

“We do have a small, short clip of video footage that we do believe is the person that we’re looking for,” he said. “And right now we don’t have any evidence to suggest that it was more than that individual which has been seen in that video.”

“We have an enhanced police presence to try to give that comfort, that sense of security. And the search and the investigation is ongoing,” he added.

Anxiety levels have “risen” in Providence, Rhode Island following the Brown University shooting on Saturday, but there is no immediate threat to residents, mayor Brett Smiley has said in a Monday morning update.

“We understand that there’s a high degree of anxiety and after this individual was released last night, I understand that anxiety level has risen in our community,” Smiley told ABC News.

“But it’s no different than a day ago, which is that we’ve received — continue to receive zero credible threats to our community brown or the broader community.”

Investigations continued on Monday, with the killer still on the loose and no definite suspect named.

Ref Bari, 22, a graduate student at Brown University, was inside the Barus & Holley building when he heard a series of loud popping sounds that appeared to be gunfire.

Bari ran out of the building and asked another student running in the street if he could hide with her and her friends and she agreed. They returned to her basement apartment and hid in the bathroom.

“She trusted me,” he said. “The only connection between us is we’re both students at Brown but beyond that, we don’t know each other.”

Jack DiPrimio, another graduate student at Brown, said he was initially not concerned when the university went on lockdown because he had experienced many active-shooter drills. The drills have become more common in the U.S. as attacks targeting students have increased.

“I had faced so many lockdowns in high school and even a few at my undergrad, so I wasn’t that worried at first,” DiPrimio said in a TikTok video after coming out of a five-hour lockdown.

“Maybe I was desensitized.”

A Democratic senator who was a champion of gun reforms in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in his state blamed Donald Trump on Sunday for encouraging a “dizzying” campaign of violence, hours after authorities announced that a person of interest was apprehended for a mass shooting at Brown University.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy told CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union that the president’s rhetoric and actions since returning to the White House made violence “more likely” in America.

Representing the state in the Senate since 2013, the senator is a leading voice for gun safety restrictions among members of his party.

His remarks came after America was rocked by news Saturday evening of a gunman opening fire in an academic building at the Ivy League university in Rhode Island, killing two people and wounding nine others.

“He has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country, and I think you’re unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America,” Murphy said.

Two students were killed and at least nine others were injured after a gunman fired into a classroom at a prestigious Ivy League university in Rhode Island.

Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University in Providence forced campus buildings and parts of the city into lockdown, with students barricading themselves in buildings for hours while hundreds of law enforcement officers swarmed the city.

The suspect escaped before police arrived and — except for one brief surveillance video showing a person dressed in black rounding a corner outside the campus — all but disappeared.

A “person of interest” was detained in the early morning hours Sunday, but officials said he was released late that night.

Graig Graziosi reports on everything we know so far.

Colonel Oscar L. Perez said the FBI acted on a tip to track down the person of interest.

“There was a tip that came in specifically identifying a person of interest, which was this individual,” he told reporters Sunday.

“Our detectives got on it but this specific one was actually picked up by the FBI … They ended up locating this individual of interest,” he added.

“At that point, we did a thorough investigation … drafted some search warrants, came up with some evidence,” Perez said.

But “we didn’t have enough to prosecute anybody so that person was released,” he said.

As officials acknowledged a massive blow to the Brown University community, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters Sunday 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.

“Obviously we have a murderer out there, frankly, and so we’re not going to give away the game plan,” he said.

Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said the news of the release of a person of interest — with no suspect in hand — is “likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community.

“We believe that you remain safe in our community,” he added.

The loved ones of the two students killed in the shooting at Brown University on Saturday have spoken out, as the investigation into the attack in Rhode Island continues.

Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, who was killed on Saturday, was an aspiring neurosurgeon and was described by his family as “the most kind-hearted person.”

Ella Cook, a student from Alabama, also died from her injuries and was described as her family’s “bright light.”

The shooting unfolded at 4 p.m. local time at the Barus and Holley engineering building, where students’ final exams were taking place.

US reporter Owen Scott reports on the victims of the Brown University shooting: