By KIMBERLEE KRUESI and JENNIFER McDERMOTT Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Police in Rhode Island said early Sunday that they had a person of interest in custody over the shooting at Brown University campus that killed two people and wounded nine others.
Police spokesperson Kristy dosReis confirmed the information. A news conference was called for 7 a.m. to provide more details.
Hundreds of police officers had been scouring the Brown University campus along with nearby neighborhoods and poring over video in the hunt for the shooter who opened fire in a classroom.
The shooting erupted Saturday afternoon in the engineering building of the Ivy League school in Providence, Rhode Island, during final exams.
Surveillance video released by police shows the suspect, dressed in black, calmly walking away from the scene. His face is not visible and investigators said it wasn’t clear whether the suspect is a student.
The suspect was last seen leaving the engineering building and some witnesses told police the suspect, who could be in his 30s, may have been wearing a camouflage mask, Providence Police Deputy Chief Timothy O’Hara said.
University President Christina Paxson said she was told 10 people who were shot were students. Another person was injured by fragments from the shooting but it was not clear if the victim was a student, she said.
The search for the shooter paralyzed the campus, the nearby neighborhoods filled with stately brick homes and the downtown in Rhode Island’s capital city. Streets normally bustling with activity on weekends were eerily quiet.
Students sheltered in place for hours into the night. Officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness center where they waited. Others arrived at the shelter on buses without jackets or any belongings.
Mayor advised people to stay home
Investigators were not immediately sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom. Outer doors of the building were unlocked but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
He encouraged people living near the campus to stay inside or not return home until a shelter-in-place order was lifted.
“The Brown community’s heart is breaking and Providence’s heart is breaking along with it,” Smiley said.
Authorities believe the shooter used a handgun, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Democratic Gov. Dan McKee vowed that all resources were being deployed to catch the suspect. Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S.
Nine people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where one was in critical condition. Six required intensive care but were not getting worse and two were stable, hospital spokesperson Kelly Brennan said.
Exams were underway during shooting
Engineering design exams were underway when the shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. The building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices, according to the university’s website.
Emma Ferraro, a chemical engineering student, was in the building’s lobby working on a final project when she heard loud pops coming from the east side. Once she realized they were gunshots, she darted for the door and ran to a nearby building where she sheltered for several hours.
Former ‘Survivor’ contestant just left the building
Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was the runner-up earlier this year on the CBS reality competition show “Survivor,” said she left her lab in the engineering building 15 minutes before shots rang out.
The engineering and thermal science student shared candid moments on “Survivor” as the show’s first openly autistic contestant. She was locked down in the campus gym following the shooting and shared on social media that the only other member of her lab who was present was safely evacuated.
Brown senior biochemistry student Alex Bruce was working on a final research project in his dorm directly across the street from the building when he heard sirens outside.
“I’m just in here shaking,” he said, watching through the window as armed officers surrounded his dorm.
Students hid under desks
Students in a nearby lab turned off the lights and hid under desks after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.
Mari Camara, 20, a junior from New York City, was coming out of the library and rushed inside a taqueria to seek shelter. She spent more than three hours there, texting friends while police searched the campus.
“Everyone is the same as me, shocked and terrified that something like this happened,” she said.
Brown, the seventh oldest higher education institution in the U.S., is one of the nation’s most prestigious colleges with roughly 7,300 undergraduates and more than 3,000 graduate students. Tuition, housing and other fees run to nearly $100,000 per year, according to the university.
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Associated Press journalists Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Seung Min Kim in Washington, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, Martha Bellisle in Seattle and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.