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Efforts are on to find the man who walked brown university The shooting of nearly a dozen students in a crowded lecture hall on the campus during a busy examination session has raised questions over the school’s security systems and the urgency of the investigation.
A day after Saturday’s mass shooting, authorities said a man in custody would be released without charges, leaving investigators with little actionable information from the limited security video they recovered and struggling to develop new leads.
Law enforcement officials were still conducting the most basic investigative work two days after the shooting that left two students dead and nine injured, canvassing local residences and businesses for security camera footage and looking for physical evidence. That student and a few left Thrift Residents are frustrated by shortcomings in the university’s security and camera systems, which helped the shooter disappear.
“The fact that we are in such a situation of surveillance, but it is not used properly at all, is very disappointing,” said Li Ding, a student at the nearby Rhode Island School of Design who dances on the Brown University team.
A petition to increase security
Ding is among hundreds of students who have signed a petition calling for increased security in school buildings, saying officials need to do a better job of keeping campuses safe from threats such as active shooters.
“Honestly, the students are doing a more effective job of taking care of each other than the police,” Ding said.
Christy Dosreis, Providence’s Chief Public Information Officer Police The department said the investigation did not stop at any point after authorities made a breakthrough in the case, detaining a Wisconsin man they now believe was not involved.
“The investigation continued as the scenes were still active. Nothing was revealed,” Dosreis said.
Police and the FBI on Monday released new video and photos of the man they believe carried out the attack. In the footage before and after the attack, the man was wearing a mask.
Investigation ‘hard work’
FBI boston Special Agent in Charge Ted Dokes said a $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the shooter.
Docs described the investigation as “painstaking work”, including documenting the trajectories of bullets at the shooting scene.
“We are asking the public to be patient as we narrow down every lead so we can give victims, survivors, their families and all of you the answers you deserve,” Docs told reporters.
Lack of campus security footage
While Brown University has many cameras, the Baras and Holley buildings, where the engineering school was targeted, had very few cameras.
“The reality is this is an old building that’s attached to a new building,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters about the lack of cameras nearby.
Due to lack of campus footage, police had to ask for suggestions from the public.
Catherine Baima said U.S. Marshals came to her door on Monday and asked for footage from a security camera located across the street.
“This is the first time any of us in my building, as far as I know, have heard from anyone,” Baima said.
Students said the school’s emergency alert system kept them relatively well informed about the presence of an active shooter. But they were unsure what to do during a prolonged campus lockdown.
Chiang-Heng Chien, a 32-year-old doctoral student in engineering, hid under a desk and turned off the lights after receiving an alert about a shooting in his campus lab at 4:22 p.m. on Saturday.
“While I was hiding in the lab, I heard the police shouting outside, but my friends and I were debating whether we should open the door, because at that time it seemed that the attacker was (nearby),” he said in a message.
experts Says colleges may be at a disadvantage when it comes to security
Law enforcement experts say colleges are often at a disadvantage when responding to threats like an active shooter. Their security officers are generally less trained and lower paid than other law enforcement departments. They do not always have close partnerships with better-resourced agencies.
Terrence Gainer, a former Illinois law enforcement officer who later served as Sergeant-at-Arms of the U.S. Senate, said that too often, funding for campus police departments is not a top priority, even for schools with adequate resources.
Gainer, now a consultant, said, “They’re not as adept at law enforcement as you think. They don’t like a lot of uniformed presence, they don’t like a lot of guns around.” “Whether it’s Brown or anyone else, an important question is what kind of relationship does he have with the local police department?”
At Utah Valley University, where conservative leader Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a shooter on the roof of a school building last summer, an Associated Press review found that the small campus police department never asked neighboring agencies to assist with security at an outdoor Kirk event that was attended by thousands of people.
Changes to Providence’s warning system
Providence has an emergency alert system, but it switched from a mobile app to a web-based system in March. The new system requires one to register online to receive alerts – something not all residents were aware of.
Emily Valley, 35, lives about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from Brown with her two young children. She said she found “absolutely nothing” in the alert. Instead he relied on messages from friends and news.
Valley expected to be notified through the city’s 311 app, but he didn’t realize that Mayor Brett Smiley phased out the app in March. Smiley said his administration sent multiple alerts the day of the shooting using the new 311 system and continues to send them.
Haley Souza, 23, finished her shift at a smoothie shop off campus just minutes before the shooting. Everything seemed normal and calm, Souza said.
But while going home he saw a boy lying in a pool of blood on the footpath. “Then everyone started running and screaming,” she said. Souza said he saw a bystander tear off his T-shirt to help.
The shop Souza manages in The Pink is a block away from the engineering building. One of the shooting victims, Ella Cook, was a regular at the store, Souza said. Cook had come a few days ago and said his last final was Saturday.
Souza later learned that police had come to the store to tell her co-workers about an active shooter. But Souza never received an emergency warning. “Nothing,” she said.
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Wiffering, Tau, and Slodisko reported from Washington. McDermott reported from Providence. Associated Press writers Kimberly Crusi and Matt O’Brien in Providence and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.