US police have resumed their search for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, after releasing a person of interest and determining evidence pointed in a different direction.
Early lead fizzles as evidence shifts
The abrupt announcement marked a setback in the investigation of Saturday’s attack on the Ivy League school’s campus and added to mounting questions, including about the apparent lack of video evidence and whether the focus on the person of interest gave the killer more time to escape justice.
Police have released surveillance footage showing the possible shooter dressed in black walking near the building where the attack took place, though his face is not visible.
The gunman fled after opening fire in a classroom in Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering and physics building, where outer doors had been left unlocked while exams were taking place, according to police.
At a press conference late on Sunday, officials said there had been enough evidence to justify taking into custody the unnamed person of interest, a man in his 20s. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha later said investigators had determined there was “no basis to believe that he’s a person of interest, so … he’s being released”. Officials did not offer more details about how the evidence had shifted.
Providence residents remained on edge, although officials said there were no credible threats to the community and that they would not reimpose a shelter-in-place order for the campus and the surrounding area, which had been lifted earlier. “People are very confused and nervous,” said Sue Erkkinen, a real estate agent. “We are staying indoors. We have all been glued to the TV, and it looks like the manhunt is now back on.”
The neighbourhood was eerily quiet on Monday, local time, several residents told Reuters, as most people were staying behind locked doors. Officers were knocking on doors, asking whether anyone had seen anything or had any cameras that might have caught a glimpse of the suspect, while police helicopters whirred overhead.
One family left to stay with friends in another town, while a first-floor tenant was so frightened that she asked her landlord to let her spend time on the second floor, neighbours said. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley’s home, less than a block from the site of the shooting, served as ground zero for officials to gather over the weekend.
Shooting victims mourned
The two students killed were Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, a citizen of Uzbekistan. Ms Cook was vice-president of the school’s College Republicans and a “leading Republican voice at Brown”, according to an X post from the New York Republicans Club. Her LinkedIn profile included jobs as an ice cream server at a Mountain Brook creamery and a program assistant in New York.
“Wesley and I join the Mountain Brook community and all of Alabama in mourning the heartbreaking loss of one of our own, Ella Cook, who was senselessly killed over the weekend on Brown University’s campus,” US senator Katie Britt of Alabama wrote in a statement with her husband.
Mr Umurzokov, an aspiring neurosurgeon, was his family’s “biggest role model”, according to a GoFundMe campaign set up by his family. “He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation, and was the most kind-hearted person our family knew,” the family wrote. He graduated from Midlothian High School in Virginia this spring as one of the top 10 students in his class, according to a video of the school’s graduation ceremony.
In a statement, the US ambassador to Uzbekistan, Jonathan Henick, mourned “the loss of his bright future”.
Brown is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the United States. The Ivy League school, which has nearly 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students, cancelled exams and classes for the rest of the year.
Reuters/AP
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