A terrible weekend got worse before it finished. Terrorists massacred Jews in Australia, a mass shooter at Brown University killed two people and wounded nine others, and someone murdered Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle Singer Reiner in their home.
It doesn't get much worse than that – except when one hears the update from Brown. Police had detained a suspect immediately after the shooting, but late last night, they had to release him. The suspect remains a "person of interest," law enforcement announced, but ...
A "person of interest" detained in the Brown University mass shooting was being released, officials said late Sunday
The big picture: Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said at a Sunday night briefing on plans to release the sole person detained in connection with the attack that Brown confirmed killed two students and wounded nine others that evidence in the investigation "now points in a different direction."
- Officials acknowledged at the briefing community concerns as police search for a suspect in Saturday's shooting. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley noted that news of the release of the man who was detained as a person of interest "is likely to cause fresh anxiety."
Gee ... ya think?
The Providence police department released video of the shooter late Saturday and asked the public for assistance in identifying him. The video clip itself raises questions about security on campus:
Video of person of interest in Brown shooting: pic.twitter.com/fjufQ3MTdC
— Providence Police (@ProvidenceRIPD) December 14, 2025
That's not much to go on, clearly. How does an Ivy League university have so little video on a campus shooter in 2025? The Wall Street Journal's report on the release of the "person of interest" notes the lack of investment in surveillance systems while not exactly explaining it:
Police have examined security camera video from Brown University’s campus but that footage hasn’t yielded new information, Smiley said, urging the public to submit video recordings to authorities.
“There just weren’t a lot of cameras in that Brown building,” Neronha said during a sometimes tense question-and-answer session with the press. “We’re not holding back a video that we think would be useful.”
The WSJ report doesn't mention the "different direction" comment, and makes it sound as though the suspect originally arrested remains on the list of potential perps:
Earlier Sunday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had detained a person of interest in a hotel room in Coventry, a city outside Providence, the agency said. There wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute the person in custody, officials said.
The shooting in a Brown engineering building on Saturday afternoon sent terrified students running for safety, with some barricading themselves in university buildings and inside their dorms while police launched a manhunt for the killer.
On Saturday, law enforcement released a video of a person dressed in black and walking on a sidewalk near the scene of the shooting. The individual in the video remains a person of interest, Police Chief Oscar Perez said, but officials will continue to look for additional video evidence and canvass the surrounding neighborhood for more footage.
Is this 'person' still a suspect? Or is this a modified limited hangout after screwing up and detaining an innocent person? Rhode Island's attorney general seemed to indicate it's the latter, after making the "different direction" comment:
- R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha said at the Sunday night briefing there's "no basis" to believe the man whom police had detained was this person.
Great work, everyone. It sounds as though state law enforcement and the FBI are not on the same page. That's not exactly a confidence builder, and it puts lie to Brown's claim that "they do not believe there is any immediate threat to Brown or the local community." How could they know that if they don't know who the shooter was and whether he's still in the area? Doesn't it make more sense to warn the community to protect themselves? Brown isn't exactly acting like everything's back to peacgers and cream:
Providence and Brown’s campus will have an enhanced law-enforcement presence starting Monday, Smiley said. ...
Officials lifted a shelter in place order earlier Sunday when they determined that there was no additional threat. Brown canceled most remaining final exams and classes and said students were free to leave the campus.
Stay tuned, I guess. Right now, it's tough to have much confidence in the idea that this perp will get caught via security infrastructure at Brown. It will take tips, handheld video, and long police hours to identify the shooter and determine motive and the level of continuing threat. Just be careful about jumping to conclusions with arrests in the short term, as this sequence proved over the last 24 hours.
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