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It’s been nearly a week since someone killed two students and injured nine others inside a Brown University classroom before fleeing, yet investigators Thursday still had not learned the name of the attacker.
There have been other high-profile attacks in which it took several days or longer to make arrests or find those responsible, including brazen attacks new york city UnitedHealthcare’s sidewalk murder ceo Last year, that took five days.
But despair is growing Thrift The man behind Saturday’s attack, which killed two students and injured nine others, managed to escape and a clear image of his face is yet to emerge.
“There is no frustration among those who understand that not every case can be resolved quickly,” the state attorney general, Peter Neronha, said at a news conference Wednesday.
How is the investigation going?
Authorities have scoured the area for evidence and have urged the public to check any phones or security footage from the week before the attack, which they believe may have shown the shooter time and again. But they did not realize that they were close to catching the shooter.
Investigators have released several videos of the hours and minutes before and after the shooting, showing a man who, according to police, matches witnesses’ descriptions of the shooter. In the clip, the person is standing, walking and even running on the streets outside the campus, but always wearing a mask or with his head turned away.
Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack occurred in an older part of the engineering building where there are few if any cameras. And investigators believe the shooter entered and left through a door that faces a residential street bordering the complex, which could explain why Brown’s cameras did not capture footage of the man.
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said Wednesday the city is doing “everything possible” to keep residents safe. However, he acknowledged it is “a scary time in the city” and families are likely to have difficult conversations about staying in the city during the holidays.
When Smiley was asked if the city was safe, he said, “We’re doing everything we can to reassure people, to provide comfort and that’s the best answer I can give to that difficult question.”
Although it is not unheard of for someone to disappear after carrying out such a high-profile shooting, it is rare.
What can be learned from previous investigations?
In such targeted and highly public attacks, the shooters usually kill themselves or are killed or arrested by police, said retiree Katherine Schwitt. FBI Agent and expert on mass shootings. When they escape, the search can take time.
“The best they can do now is continue to put all the facts together as quickly as possible,” Schwitt said. “And, really, the best hope for a solution is going to come from the public.”
In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, it took investigators four days to track down the two brothers who carried it out. In a 2023 case, Army reservist Robert Card was found dead of an apparent suicide two days after killing 18 people and wounding 13 others in Lewiston, Maine.
The man accused of murdering conservative political figure Charlie Kirk in September has turned himself in to police, about a day and a half after the attack on the campus of Utah Valley University. And luigi mangioneA man who pleaded not guilty to murder in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan last year was arrested five days later at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
Felipe Rodriguez, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it’s clear the shooters are learning from others who have been caught.
“Most of the time an active shooter is going to go in, and he’s going to try to do what we call maximum carnage, maximum damage,” Rodriguez said. “And at this point, they’re really trying to run away. And they’re really evading the police with an effective method that I haven’t seen before.”
Investigators have described the man they are searching for as being about 5 feet, 8 inches (173 cm) tall and of build. The attacker’s motives remain a mystery, but officials said Wednesday that no evidence suggests any specific individual was being targeted.
Meanwhile, police in the Boston area are investigating the shooting death of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor earlier this week. Nuno FG Loureiro was attacked at his home on Monday, and no one has been arrested or named as suspects. The FBI said it had no reason to think her murder was connected to the Brown attack.
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Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Hailey Golden in Seattle contributed.