Police on Monday continued their search for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, releasing multiple videos and images showing someone they say is a person of interest.
Providence Chief of Police Col. Oscar Perez on Monday released additional videos of a person dressed in black and wearing a face mask walking near the area of Hope and Benevolent streets. They were taken from around 2 p.m. on Saturday, two hours before the first 911 call came in on the day of the shooting, he said.
“We believe that’s the same individual that we showed you from the previous videos we released,” Perez told reporters at a news conference.
Earlier, the Providence Police Department shared a different video of who they said was a person of interest and urged the public to contact the FBI Tip Center online if they recognized the individual.
The video shows a man walking down Waterman Street in Providence just after 4 p.m. on Saturday. He appears to be wearing a similar outfit seen in previously released surveillance videos.
The FBI on Monday announced that a reward of up to $50,000 is being offered for information that leads to the identification, arrest and conviction of a suspect. The tip line number is 401-272-3121.
“Just like all of us, we want to see the individual who pulled the trigger on these young kids identified, apprehended and brought to justice,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said Monday.
Previously, authorities announced the release late Sunday night of another person police had said was a person of interest after determining that the evidence pointed “in a different direction.” Police had said they had detained them at a hotel in connection with the attack and lifted a lockdown on campus.
The person’s release left law enforcement without any known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble their efforts to pinpoint the killer’s identity.
“We have a murderer out there,” Attorney General Peter Neronha said Sunday night.
Providence Police Chief Perez said, “We followed on a lead. And we followed on a specific lead … That’s how investigations work.”
“It’s not a mistake. It’s just how investigations work,” he said.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said he understands that the community is anxious, but that there have been no credible threats of further violence since the shooting.
On Monday, he urged people to submit any information, including video or photo evidence, that could help authorities pinpoint the gunman.
On Sunday morning, officials detained who they said was a person of interest at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles from Providence. Sources told CBS News that the individual was a 24-year-old man, though authorities never released his name.
“I’ve been around long enough to know 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,” Neronha said.
He said there was some evidence that pointed to the person authorities detained, but “that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed. And over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction.”
The gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the engineering building, getting off more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
A shelter-in-place for Brown University was lifted on Sunday morning.
The shooting victims were identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an Uzbek American student.
Rhode Island Hospital, where the injured victims are being treated for gunshot wounds, said on Monday that six patients remain in critical stable condition, one is in critical condition and another is in stable condition. One patient has been discharged.
Smiley confirmed on Sunday that he had spoken to four of the victims.
“The resilience that these survivors showed and shared with me is frankly pretty overwhelming,” he 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. The remaining classes and exams for the semester were canceled.
