Police release ‘person of interest’ held after 2 killed at Brown University

Authorities have said they will release a man previously arrested as a “person of interest” in the hunt for a gunman that killed two people at Brown University in the northeastern United States.

Brett Smiley, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, said at a late-night news conference on Sunday that a man in his 20s, who had been taken into custody earlier in the day, was to be released after investigators determined he was not connected to the shooting at the prestigious Ivy League university.

Two students were killed and nine people injured on Saturday, when a suspect with a firearm entered a building where students were taking exams and opened fire.

The unidentified gunman fled the scene, prompting a major manhunt and resulting in a temporary shelter-in-place order on campus.

Speaking alongside Smiley, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said there had been a “quantum of evidence” which had earlier justified arresting the man, but that investigators had since determined he was not a person of interest in the case.

“We have not yet solved this case, but I am confident we are going to do that in the near future,” he said.

Officials say they believe an unidentified person captured in security footage at the scene is the person they are looking for.

Smiley said one person injured in the shooting was in critical condition, while another seven were in stable condition and one was discharged.

The shooting prompted a manhunt involving more than 400 law enforcement personnel, including agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, while the campus was placed under lockdown as the search took place.

Students hid under desks for hours after warnings of an active shooter were released.

Brown said in an advisory earlier on Sunday that police had lifted a shelter-in-place order for the campus, although the police remained at the location and still considered it an active crime scene.

Access to parts of the campus remained restricted on Sunday as police maintained a security perimeter around Minden Hall and nearby apartment buildings, the university said.

Providence Deputy Police Chief Timothy O’Hara said on Saturday that the gunman may have worn a mask, and investigators had retrieved shell casings from the scene.

Detectives were looking into why the location was attacked, police told reporters. The incident was the second deadly gun attack at a US university in recent days, after a shooting at Kentucky State University on Tuesday.

The Gun Violence Archive, which defines mass shootings as any incident in which four or more people are shot, has documented 389 such incidents in the US so far this year, including at least six at schools.

Last year, more than 500 mass shootings were recorded in the US.