PinnedUpdated Dec. 15, 2025, 3:11 a.m. ETThe search for the gunman who killed two people at Brown University in Rhode Island dragged into Monday after officials said a person of interest detained earlier was released because they could not find enough evidence connecting him to the shooting.Mayor Brett Smiley of Providence, R.I., said Sunday night that officials had no way of knowing if the attacker that sent the Ivy League campus into lockdown on Saturday was still in the city.The turn in the investigation came hours after the authorities said they had detained a person of interest in a town near Providence. Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, said that federal investigators had found the person in a town near Providence after a lead from the city police.But investigators did not find enough evidence to charge that person in connection with the shooting, Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, said at a news conference on Sunday night. The person was released, he said.Law enforcement officials have not named any other suspects or mentioned potential motives. The police released a video of the suspect in the hopes that someone might recognize him. Attorney General Peter F. Neronha of Rhode Island said there was a lack of video footage from the campus. “There just weren’t a lot of cameras in that Brown building,” he said.Here’s what we’re covering:The attack: The shooting occurred around 4 p.m. Saturday during a final exam review for an economics class. Joseph Oduro, 21, a teaching assistant, said he had been wrapping up the session when a man with a face mask and a rifle burst into the classroom. The man shouted something that Mr. Oduro could not make out and opened fire. Read more ›The victims: Nine other students were injured in the shooting. Seven of them were taken to a hospital, where one remained in critical condition on Sunday.Exams called off: Brown officials said exams would not be held as scheduled for the rest of the semester, and that students were free to go home. “For the moment, we encourage everyone to focus on their own safety and well-being,” the provost said. Read more ›Dec. 15, 2025, 12:10 a.m. ETThe message from Brown University officials said that “we continue to make every effort to ensure the safety and security of the campus,” while also “advising every member of the Brown community to be vigilant in their own activities on campus.”Dec. 15, 2025, 12:08 a.m. ETBrown University officials published a late-night message about the release of the person who had been detained. “We know that this update may prompt numerous questions,” the message said. “This remains an active police investigation, and the university must defer to the Providence Police Department to release information as they deem appropriate.”Dec. 14, 2025, 11:29 p.m. ETAttorney General Peter Neronha, at the end of the Sunday night news conference, expressed confidence that investigators would ultimately solve the case. “Obviously we have a murderer out there, frankly, and so we’re not going to give away the game plan,” he said.Dec. 14, 2025, 11:27 p.m. ET“There just weren’t a lot of cameras in that Brown building,” the state attorney general said. He added that “we’re not holding back video that we think would be useful, and I don’t think I should even have to say it.”Dec. 14, 2025, 11:27 p.m. ETSpeaking about the person who had been in custody, Attorney General Neronha said that “there is no basis to consider him a person of interest.”Dec. 14, 2025, 11:26 p.m. ETMayor Smiley said officials would provide additional updates going forward. “I imagine that the Providence community feels a little bit more anxious right now than they did an hour ago, and I understand that,” he said.Credit...Taylor Coester/ReutersDec. 14, 2025, 9:41 p.m. ETHundreds of people gathered for a candlelight vigil at Lippitt Memorial Park in Providence, R.I., on Sunday night.Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesAt a snow-swept outdoor vigil Sunday night for the victims of the Brown University shooting, the mayor of Providence edged sideways through the crowd, clapping people on the shoulder and getting clapped right back, looking more like a favorite nephew at a family gathering.The shooting on Saturday, which killed two students at the Ivy League school and injured nine, brought a rare national spotlight to Providence, a place that operates almost like a city-state in the tiny and quirky state of Rhode Island.It also thrust Brett Smiley, a low-key mayor with a reputation as technocratic, into a high-profile role as the community’s steadying hand in a turbulent crisis. At televised news conferences, Mr. Smiley has seemed determined to deliver what he calls verified information mixed with empathy for his shaken residents.“I think my job in the days to come is to help our community heal, to process the trauma that they’ve been through,” said Mr. Smiley, a trim, bespectacled 46-year-old who has held the job for three years.Rhode Island has not experienced such a high-profile national news story for more than two decades, not since indoor fireworks ignited a blaze in West Warwick at the Station nightclub in 2003, killing 100 people at a rock concert. Since the fire, Rhode Islanders have often spoken about the “two degrees of separation” among residents of this compact and tight-knit state — many people personally knew someone who was affected.“We always thought we were, in Rhode Island, just like a small place,” Mr. Smiley said in an interview on Sunday. “We always thought of ourselves as a little bit different.”A large-scale school shooting, he added, “has never happened before, and I’m sure we all hoped — I know I hoped — it never would happen here. And so it’s very upsetting and traumatic for this community.”Brown University draws students from around the country and the world, to a campus blended into Providence’s East Side neighborhood.Among the several hundred attendees at Sunday’s vigil, John Speredakos, 63, of New York City, stood on a park bench to get a better view of the ceremony. He was there because he has a daughter who was a senior at Brown.He said he had watched updates on the crisis closely. He praised the city’s initial response to the attack, and the 12-hour manhunt for the shooter that followed.“I felt they were dealing as best they could on many fronts at one time,” he said of the city’s leaders.It has been two decades since Rhode Island has experienced such a high-profile tragedy. Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesMr. Smiley, a graduate of DePaul University, lives on Hope Street, just three buildings away from where the shooting took place. The area is in the affluent and liberal East Side.The mayor said he was home on Saturday watching a Providence College basketball game on TV, when speeding police lights outside his window caught his eye. His phone rang almost at that moment.It was a Providence police official, who told him there was a report of a shooter on campus. “At that moment, honestly, I slipped into, just sort of action mode,” he said.Mr. Smiley was experienced in Rhode Island politics long before becoming mayor, working for the former Providence mayors David Cicilline and Jorge Elorza, and then for former Governor Gina Raimondo.“There’s no way to really be prepared for a day like today, but I’ve seen leaders in times of crisis,” he said.During the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the administration of Ms. Raimondo, for whom he worked at the time, “communicated relentlessly” with the public, he said.“There’s very legitimate and understandable fear and anxiety in the community, and the way in which we can help manage that fear and anxiety is to continue to provide information,” Mr. Smiley said.Dec. 14, 2025, 5:15 p.m. ETThe shooting at Brown University brought hundreds of police officers in helmets and armor to campus.Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesIt began shortly after 4 p.m., when a masked man burst into a lecture hall at Brown University with a rifle, yelled something incomprehensible, and began spraying bullets at the 60 or so students who were there for an economics study session ahead of final exams.Some students were able to escape through the side doors of the hall. Others could only hide, ducking under chairs and behind desks. Two were killed, and nine wounded.Joseph Oduro, a 21-year-old senior and teaching assistant who was leading the study session, said he took cover behind a desk with about 20 others. “The students in the middle were impacted the most,” he said. “Many of them were lying there and they were not moving.”Twelve hours after the shooting began, U.S. marshals and local officers detained a person of interest, at a hotel in Coventry, R.I., about 15 miles south of campus. That person was released without being charged, authorities announced in a news conference late Sunday night.The search for the shooter was continuing, authorities said Sunday, as they asked for the public’s help and said they would be searching for video footage from the neighborhood near the shooting scene. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said local officials were no longer advising residents to shelter in place and that there would be “an enhanced law enforcement presence in Providence and on the Brown campus.”Most students first learned what was happening through a phone alert, at 4:22 p.m. on Saturday, a few minutes after sunset on a wintry day, while many of them were studying for final exams. The alert blared a shocking warning: There was an active shooter at the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building. The alert directed people on the Providence, R.I., campus to shelter in place.Police mobilized to find a shooter at Brown University on Saturday.Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesJohn Goncalves, a Brown alumnus who represents the neighborhood on the Providence City Council, said he was at a public event Saturday when his phone was overwhelmed with incoming messages. As he pieced together the startling information about what had happened, “it was almost impossible to process,” he said. “This is a community where people feel safe.”But on Saturday night, students and nearby residents on lockdown peeked from their windows to see an overwhelming police response, with officers wearing armor and helmets and toting weapons, something entirely out of character for their neighborhood.The streets near the school are a popular entertainment spot for both students and residents of Providence, who come for restaurants, bars and a theater. The neighborhood, decked out for the holidays, was transformed on Saturday, abandoned by residents and swarming, instead, with armed police.Military-style vehicles idled in intersections. Circling helicopters thrummed overhead. The hundreds of officers stood out in particular for the rifles and shotguns they carried — fearsome weaponry not often seen on the streets of an Ivy League college town. The officers fanned out through the neighborhood, searching for the shooter, shining powerful lights down alleyways and into parked cars.Dozens of ambulances, lights flashing, queued up ominously in long lines on side streets, in case there were more shooting and more victims.Mayor Smiley said he met with a wounded student at the hospital who was thankful for active shooter drills in high school. “We shouldn’t have to do active shooter drills, but it helped,” the mayor said, “and the reason it helped, and the reason we do these drills, is because it’s so damn frequent.”Spencer Yang, 18, who was shot in the leg in the science lecture hall, recalled little about the shooter, who entered at the rear of the auditorium-style classroom. He remembered vividly, though, that at the bang of gunshots, students began to run toward the front of the downward-sloping classroom.“I didn’t make it all the way to the front — I just laid down between some seats,” Mr. Yang said.“After the shots rang out, it was kind of silent,” he said. “Once he was gone, I just remember a bunch of people started screaming.”Many sheltered in place for hours after the initial alert, until the police arrived to search them and their buildings. Some 2,000 students were evacuated; many ended up initially at a nearby athletic center, before being relocated to stay with friends or in hotels.Annelise Mages, 17, a first-year pre-med student from San Diego, was studying for her chemistry final in the high-rise Sciences Library, which overlooks the building where the shooting took place. She first noticed police lights, and then received the university alert.From the windows on the fourth floor, she and other students watched emergency medical teams tend to injured people; one student was brought out on a stretcher, holding his arm.She and dozens of other students barricaded doors with white boards and chairs. Some hid in bathrooms.Two or three hours later, about seven police officers broke down the barricades. With the shooter still at large, the police evacuated the students at gunpoint, screaming at them to hold their hands up, Ms. Mages said. Some students were in tears.The attack on killed two students and injured nine.Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesThe group then spent another four to five hours in the building’s basement, before they were bused to the university’s athletic center. There, they were split into male and female lines and patted down. Hundreds of students waited in a line for food.When Ms. Mages exited the athletic center on Sunday morning around 3 a.m., after nearly 12 hours of lockdown in several different locations, the first thing she noticed was the newly fallen snow.“The first snow of the year,” she said. “We’re all in mourning, and it’s winter, and I’m not sure what the spring at Brown will look like.”Dec. 14, 2025, 2:57 p.m. ETThe Barus and Holley building on the Brown University campus, where Saturday’s shooting occurred. Credit...Christopher Capozziello for The New York TimesWhen Annelise Mages, 17, exited the Brown University athletic center on Sunday morning around 3 a.m., after nearly 12 hours of lockdown in several locations on campus, the first thing she noticed was the snow.“The first snow of the year,” she said. “We’re all in mourning, and it’s winter, and I’m not sure what the spring at Brown will look like.”On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Mages, a first-year pre-med student from San Diego, was studying for her chemistry final in the high-rise Sciences Library, which overlooks the Barus and Holley building where the shooting took place.She first noticed police lights, and later received a university alert about an active shooter.From the oversize windows on the library’s fourth floor, she and other students watched emergency medical teams tend to several injured people, and saw one student brought out of the Barus and Holley building on a stretcher, holding his arm.She and dozens of other students then decided to protect themselves by lowering shades and barricading doors, using whiteboards and chairs. Some chose to hide in the bathrooms. Ms. Mages called her mother to tell her she was safe.She estimated it was two to three hours later when about seven police officers broke down the barricades. The officers evacuated students at gunpoint, screaming at them to hold their hands up, Ms. Mages said. Some students were in tears.The group then spent another four to five hours in the building’s basement, before they were bused, via a roundabout route, to the university’s athletic center. There, they were split into male and female lines and patted down. Hundreds of students waited in line for food, but there did not seem to be enough, Ms. Mages said.After about 12 hours, she finally had her first meal since the ordeal began: soggy French fries and tortellini, carried in a takeout container by a friend who had been barricaded in a dining hall earlier in the evening before also being brought to the athletic center.Ms. Mages said she had chosen Brown, in part, because it was a welcoming, joyful community that, until yesterday, she perceived as a safe haven. “I would say that Brown is the institution I would have thought least likely to have a school shooting,” she said.Now, she added, she expected the experiences of the last several days to shape the rest of her and her classmates’ lives.