Brown University shootings | New images of the suspect released

(Providence) Investigators responsible for finding the perpetrator of the shootings at American Brown University, which left two people dead and nine injured on Saturday, released a series of photos and videos of the suspect before and after the events on Monday.

We see the man dressed in black, masked and wearing a cap, moving through the streets of Providence, in the state of Rhode Island (northeast), the city which is home to the elite Ivy League university.

“We are asking for the public’s help in identifying this individual,” police chief Colonel Oscar Perez said at a press conference late in the afternoon.

“It is crucial that we reconstruct this man’s movements, both before and after. I am hopeful that we will eventually see a pattern,” added state Governor Daniel McKee.

On the ground, the police remained present in large numbers.

“Several teams do different things: exploit electronic evidence, extract physical evidence – that is to say forensic elements at the crime scene –, investigate the streets,” detailed agent Ted Docks of the FBI, who is offering a reward of $ 50,000 in this case.

No “immediate threat”

On Sunday morning, a man in his twenties was arrested but the announcement of his release came in the evening because “there is no reason to consider him as a potential suspect,” said the state attorney general, Peter Neronha.

On Saturday afternoon, a gunman opened fire in the engineering and physics building at Brown University, where exams were being held.

“He came in, pointed his gun and shouted something,” Joseph Oduro, a teaching assistant in the room, told CNN. “I don’t know what he said, and none of the other students know what he said, and then he just started shooting.” »

Two students were killed: Ella Cook, vice president of Brown’s Republican Association, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a native of Uzbekistan who wanted to become a neurosurgeon.

Of the other nine injured, one is in critical condition, seven are in serious but stable condition, and the last has been released from hospital.

The majority of exams scheduled between now and the end of the semester have been canceled, Brown announced, which however remains open. “Local police have indicated that they do not believe there is any immediate threat,” said a message on the university’s X account Monday morning.

“There have been no new, credible and specific threats anywhere in the community,” confirmed Mayor Brett Smiley during the press conference at the end of the day.

However, “we seek to reassure our residents with a noticeable and visible police presence”.

Debate on gun carrying

At an event at the White House on Sunday, Donald Trump called the attack “terrible.” “Great university, truly one of the best in the world, these things can happen,” continued the American president.

This killing further fuels the debate on the carrying of weapons, guaranteed by the Constitution and to which many Americans remain very attached.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy denounced on CNN on Sunday the measures taken by the Trump administration, “under the thumb” of this industry, which make this form of violence more likely, according to him.

With more firearms in circulation than people, the United States has the highest gun death rate of any developed country. In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not including suicides, were killed by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

Recent American history is punctuated by killings, with no place in daily life seeming safe, from the business to the church, from the supermarket to the nightclub, from the public highway to public transport.

The deadliest school shooting in the country’s history took place in April 2007: a student shot 32 people on the campus of Virginia Tech University before committing suicide.