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Police in Rhode Island say they have a person of interest in custody as they investigate the shooting at Brown University that killed two people and wounded nine others on Saturday.
Hundreds of police officers had been searching the campus along with nearby neighbourhoods and poring over video in the hunt for the shooter who opened fire in a classroom.
The shooting occurred Saturday afternoon in the engineering building of the Ivy League school in Providence during final exams.
Surveillance video released by police shows the suspect, dressed in black, calmly walking away from the scene. His face is not visible and investigators said it wasn’t clear whether the suspect is a student.
Some witnesses told police the suspect, who could be in his 30s, may have been wearing a camouflage mask, Providence Police Deputy Chief Timothy O’Hara said.
The search for the shooter paralyzed the campus and surrounding community. Streets normally bustling with activity on weekends were eerily quiet.
Students sheltered in place for hours into the night. Officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness centre where they waited. Others arrived at the shelter on buses without jackets or any belongings.
‘Community’s heart is breaking,’ mayor says
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
He had encouraged people living near the campus to stay inside or not return home until the shelter-in-place order was lifted.
“The Brown community’s heart is breaking and Providence’s heart is breaking along with it,” Smiley said.
Democratic Gov. Dan McKee vowed that all resources were being deployed to catch the suspect. Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S.
Nine people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where one was in critical condition. Six required intensive care but were not getting worse and two were stable, hospital spokesperson Kelly Brennan said.
Exams were underway during shooting
Engineering design exams were underway when the shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-storey 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.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the building’s lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she sheltered for several hours.
WATCH | Providence mayor on the deadly shooting:
At least 2 killed, 8 injured in Brown University shooting: Providence, R.I., mayor
Providence, R.I., Mayor Brett Smiley said police are still looking for a suspect behind a deadly shooting at Brown University’s engineering building Saturday afternoon.
Students hid under desks
Students in a nearby lab turned off the lights and hid under desks after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.
Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.
“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.
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. Tuition, housing and other fees run to nearly $100,000 per year, according to the university.