PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police renewed their search Monday for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they…
Police renewed their search Monday for the gunman who killed two Brown University students and wounded nine others, a day after they released a person of interest after determining the evidence pointed “in a different direction.”
Authorities announced the man’s release at news conference late Sunday, marking a setback in the investigation into Saturday’s attack on the Ivy League school’s campus.
It unraveled progress authorities thought they had made at the start of the day when they announced they had detained him at a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the attack and lifted a campus lockdown.
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.
The release of the person of interest left law enforcement without any known suspect, with officials pledging to redouble their efforts by canvassing for video surveillance that could help pinpoint the killer’s identity.
“We have a murderer out there,” said Attorney General Peter Neronha.
On Sunday morning, officials took into custody a person of interest at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Providence. Two people familiar with the matter identified that individual as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin, 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.
