PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Authorities on Monday released surveillance footage and appealed for the public’s help identifying a masked suspect in the Brown University shooting that killed two students and wounded eight others, as the manhunt entered another day and a shaken campus remained on edge.
Investigators said they have not identified the gunman who opened fire with a 9mm handgun inside a classroom in Brown’s engineering and physics building on Saturday, then slipped away as police converged on the scene. The victims were identified as Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18. Seven of the eight injured students remain hospitalized, including one in critical condition, officials said.
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Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said authorities are confident the person seen in multiple surveillance clips is the gunman, but investigators have “zero” evidence pointing to a motive.
In a timeline video stitched from neighborhood surveillance cameras and a car’s dashcam, the suspect appears in dark clothing and a face mask walking near the College Hill campus hours before the attack. Police said the individual was in the area as early as 10:30 a.m. Saturday — more than five hours before the shooting — and likely casing the scene. One clip shows the person walking from the building’s parking area toward the street even as police vehicles arrive with lights flashing. Another captures the suspect three minutes after the gunfire, continuing down the street away from campus.
Officials said camera coverage inside the engineering and physics building was limited and no clear interior footage of the assailant exists. Police have received more than 200 tips and are combing through them, Chief Perez said. He and Neronha urged patience, defending the pace of the investigation and asking residents to review the video in hopes someone recognizes the person.
The shooting unfolded while exams were underway, prompting a campus lockdown that left students barricaded in rooms or hiding under desks for hours. Brown University has since doubled its Department of Public Safety staffing and restricted entry to campus buildings, the school said. Classes and final exams have been canceled for the remainder of the year, and many undergraduates have left campus. Public schools in Providence remain open, though after-school activities were canceled.
Authorities said they initially detained a man in his 20s early Sunday as a person of interest but released him after determining he was not involved.
Cook, a sophomore and vice president of Brown’s College Republicans, was remembered by peers as a prominent conservative voice on campus. In her hometown, she worked at an ice cream shop through high school, where coworkers proudly told customers she was headed to a top-ranked college. Umurzokov, who moved to Virginia as a child, graduated this spring from Midlothian High School as a top-10 student and planned to become a neurosurgeon. “He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation,” his family wrote in an online fundraising post. “Our family is incredibly devastated by this loss.”
Brown, among the oldest and most prestigious universities in the United States, enrolls nearly 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
The weekend attack adds to a year of repeated gun violence in the U.S., where there have been more than 300 mass shootings so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines such incidents as those in which at least four people are shot. During a Christmas event at the White House on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump briefly addressed the Brown shooting, saying “things can happen” and wishing the injured a swift recovery.
Officials urged anyone with information about the suspect in the Brown University shooting to contact law enforcement and referenced the newly released video timeline as a key tool in identifying the gunman.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
