A person of interest identified in Saturday’s mass shooting at Brown University will be released from custody, authorities said late Sunday, sparking a manhunt for the killer.
“Evidence now points in a different direction,” Gov. Dan McKee said at a news conference Sunday night.
The 24-year-old man was detained Sunday morning, three senior law enforcement officials told NBC News. On Sunday night, officials said there was no longer a reason to keep him in custody in connection with the shooting, which killed two students and wounded nine other people at the Ivy League school.
The tip that led to the 24-year-old being detained was fielded by the FBI, said Providence's police chief, Col. Oscar Perez.
“It was actually picked up by the FBI and they followed through with it and they ended up coming and locating this individual of interest," Perez said.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said “a quantum of evidence” justified detaining the person of interest and that the investigation would continue to let evidence take authorities in the right direction.
“We have not yet solved this case,” Neronha said, “but I’m confident we’re going to do that, and I am confident we’re going to do that in the very near future.”
As officials said the person would be released, McKee said he regretted that the person faced so much attention and that the investigation would proceed more carefully.
“That was really unfortunate” that the person experienced the glare of a national spotlight, he said. “It’s hard to put that back in the bottle.”
Neronha would not go further into what happens next in the investigation, but he said law enforcement was equipped to solve the case.
“I don’t want to get into all those things, because obviously we have a murderer out there, frankly, and so we’re not going to give away the game plan,” he said, adding that investigations can take time.
Mayor Brett Smiley said the news of the person’s release may cause residents of Providence some anxiety.
“The status of safety in our community remains unchanged, and we believe that you remain safe in our community, though we will continue to have an enhanced police presence throughout the city,” he said.
Smiley said a new shelter-in-place order was not being recommended.
A gunman killed two people and wounded nine others in a shooting at Barus & Holley, an engineering and physics building on Brown’s campus in Providence, authorities have said.
In Providence, Smiley met with some of the hospitalized students, noting that some were not able to speak with him because of their conditions. He commended them for their resilience following Saturday’s attack.
“One of the students that showed tremendous courage literally said to me, ‘You know, that active shooter drill they made me do in high school actually helped me in the moment,’ which at the same time provided me hope and was so sad,” he said.
“They shouldn’t have to do active shooter drills, but it helped. And the reason it helped, and the reason we do these drills, is because it’s so damn frequent.”
CORRECTION: (Dec. 15, 2025, 9:12 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated who said a “quantum of evidence” had led to a person of interest being detained in the shooting. It was Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, not Providence’s police chief, Col. Oscar Perez.
