RI - Mass Shooting at Brown University - Providence 13 Dec 2025

[TIGER0822]

This is not a person who they believe is involved in the shooting, an official close to the investigation says, but investigators believe the individual may have spoken with the person of interest.

“We’re not saying that was any kind of criminal contact,” Maj. David Lapatin of the Providence Police Department told CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/brown-university-shooting-suspect-12-17-25?t=1765999267562

They are Setting up a manhunt for him! They don’t want another lawsuit!

 

[99cats]

I think LE might have an idea because they have seen the video that the still came from and watching this person walking might clue in more on the feminine/masculine walk.

The jacket reminds me of one of those shorter crop-like things people are wearing now adays. It seems like a shiny fabric like a puffer jacket, and I tried looking online but don't see anything. Same with the shoes. They look like clogs to me, but shiny in some photos and not shiny in others. So frustrating to have so much information, yet so little at the same time. lol

Good call on the jacket - I can see that too.

The shoes remind me of these (just shiny/glossy crocs), at least as much as I can tell with the quality of the photo:

Crocs are, at least in my experience, difficult to run in though. So if the person in the photo was also the person running after the POI in the video, it might not be crocs.

 

[justtrish]

you would think, since they have these witness statements, they would give out a written description: height, weight, eye color, complexion, estimated age , etc. We know that witnesses can be way off, but they had approx. 20 people in the classroom who were not killed or injured so if 15 agree on a characteristic.....

The lecture hall looked like a movie theater style seating. If he came in the back people would be facing forward toward the instructor so many might not have seen him and most people would be trying to duck and hide I think it's easy to not get details in this case with the room sloping down toward the front then people would be trying to judge height from a lower point than the shooter while trying to hide. IMO

 

[99cats]

Could it be targeted, but the person was trying to catch the target going in? Or all the loitering was to see if they actually attended the study session. Maybe looking for a car parked in the area?

It could be. I get hung up on the timing of it all - the shooting took place almost exactly at 4, which is the end of the second finals session of the day. It almost seems like the tracking around the university was the POI looking for someone or something, and that the attack was done at the last minute the finals were scheduled to occur. Of course this is all blatant speculation - but could he have been looking for someone in particular with the intent of shooting them on the street, not spotted them, and then gone to where they were supposed to be as "plan B" even though there would be witnesses and possibly other causalities? It just seems so strange he waited for hours until 4 and then went into the building at the very end of the exam period.

 

[justtrish]

Absolutely possible.

But if you’re targeting a particular person, there are much easier ways to do it than like this.

This whole case is just so bizarre and like the person isn't doing anything "normal" for these cases.

Oh, and I noticed in the still photo of person 2 we see a truck bed there. We don't have video of that area at an angle that shows that location, just the still of the person entering that area. I did briefly wonder if he was waiting for person 2 and they pulled up there and parked and got out. He is seen watching that area a few minutes earlier before he circles back around the block to the other side and that is when we see him looking and turning to run the other way. Could person 2 have parked on that street?? Could that truck with the bed cover possibly be person 2's vehicle?

 

[MassGuy]

This whole case is just so bizarre and like the person isn't doing anything "normal" for these cases.

Oh, and I noticed in the still photo of person 2 we see a truck bed there. We don't have video of that area at an angle that shows that location, just the still of the person entering that area. I did briefly wonder if he was waiting for person 2 and they pulled up there and parked and got out. He is seen watching that area a few minutes earlier before he circles back around the block to the other side and that is when we see him looking and turning to run the other way. Could person 2 have parked on that street?? Could that truck with the bed cover possibly be person 2's vehicle?

The bizarreness started when the shooter successfully fled, and it's continued with him being unidentified to this point. Overwhelmingly, mass shooters don't intend to get away with with it. Total outlier, which only increases the possibilities as far as just about anything goes, to include this not being your standard "lone world" act.

Which is something I would have bet a lot of money on initially.

There's just got to be something on video somewhere that shows how this person (or these persons) arrived.

 

[wibbleflea]

The lecture hall looked like a movie theater style seating. If he came in the back people would be facing forward toward the instructor so many might not have seen him and most people would be trying to duck and hide I think it's easy to not get details in this case with the room sloping down toward the front then people would be trying to judge height from a lower point than the shooter while trying to hide. IMO

The teaching assistant leading the study class said that the class was finishing up and students were getting up and leaving when everyone heard a commotion and gunshots from outside the door. Then the gunman entered, said something that no one appears to have understood, and began firing. You’re right that the students ducked and hid – they remained that way even after police came in and asked them to put their hands up, according to the teaching assistant. (Link in a post of mine earlier today.) But they will have seen something useful when he entered, though they’d have been in a state of extreme fear from the beginning.

 

[MntnHiker]

The way they worded that the second person was in close enough proximity to suspect 1 that they likely have information makes me wonder if they got footage of the two talking.

Something else I was thinking about today. I don't know that it makes a huge difference overall but just curious. According to interviews with the TA, the study session was scheduled from 2-4. It was running a few minutes over when they dismissed and the shooter came in. So I wonder if his plan had been to wait until the session was over and shoot attendees on the way out. If he was planning to attack them during the study session, he should have already been in the room. He had no way of knowing that the session would definitely run past the 4:00 stop time and he was not in the room as of 4 according to what the TA said.

The TA also said he heard shooting outside of the room. I wonder if a student in the session had to leave at 4 and left before it was totally done and that was the person the suspect started shooting at, believing the session was dismissing. JMO

 

[wibbleflea]

The bizarreness started when the shooter successfully fled, and it's continued with him being unidentified to this point. Overwhelmingly, mass shooters don't intend to get away with with it.

Hadn’t occurred to me before you wrote this but is there any chance that his hanging around calmly among the police cruisers and other first responders was an attempt to be identified and apprehended? Could he have expected a description to have been distributed by then?

 

[LAhiker]

Hadn’t occurred to me before you wrote this but is there any chance that his hanging around calmly among the police cruisers and other first responders was an attempt to be identified and apprehended? Could he have expected a description to have been distributed by then?

What evidence do we have that he hung around among the police cruisers & first responders? All the images that I've seen have been from before the shooting.

 

[wibbleflea]

What evidence do we have that he hung around among the police cruisers & first responders? All the images that I've seen have been from before the shooting.

Look at the video released by the FBI. He’s moving around calmly in front of a police cruiser. I asked yesterday whether there’d be camera footage from the car. Someone asked at today’s presser and the answer was no.

 

[Sundog]

The way they worded that the second person was in close enough proximity to suspect 1 that they likely have information makes me wonder if they got footage of the two talking.

Something else I was thinking about today. I don't know that it makes a huge difference overall but just curious. According to interviews with the TA, the study session was scheduled from 2-4. It was running a few minutes over when they dismissed and the shooter came in. So I wonder if his plan had been to wait until the session was over and shoot attendees on the way out. If he was planning to attack them during the study session, he should have already been in the room. He had no way of knowing that the session would definitely run past the 4:00 stop time and he was not in the room as of 4 according to what the TA said.

The TA also said he heard shooting outside of the room. I wonder if a student in the session had to leave at 4 and left before it was totally done and that was the person the suspect started shooting at, believing the session was dismissing. JMO

I wonder if there is any cell phone data to indicate that the POI and "person number 2" communicated by cell phone during the time they were both in the area.

 

[MassGuy]

Hadn’t occurred to me before you wrote this but is there any chance that his hanging around calmly among the police cruisers and other first responders was an attempt to be identified and apprehended? Could he have expected a description to have been distributed by then?

He wasn't running when he left the area, but he wasn't strolling either. So I tend to think he did immediately get out of there, and didn't hang around like we see with arsonists, etc.

 

[Dotta]

What evidence do we have that he hung around among the police cruisers & first responders? All the images that I've seen have been from before the shooting.

Here:

"Moment Brown University suspect
WALKS PAST police officers
after college shooting.

The Brown University shooting suspect
is seen in shocking new footage
casually strolling past police officers working at the scene."

Moment Brown University suspect WALKS PAST police after shooting

Investigators on Tuesday released a video timeline of the unidentified suspect in the moments before and after gunfire rang out on December 13, killing two students and injuring nine others.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[StarryStarryNight]

2 min ago

Students were attending voluntary study session when shooting happened, provost said​

From CNN's Elise Hammond

When a gunman opened fire at the Barus & Holley building on Brown University’s campus, students were preparing for finals, making it difficult to determine exactly who was there, Brown University Provost Francis Doyle said.

A study session was happening in the classroom where the shooting happened, Doyle said. This means that it is taking longer than usual for officials to piece together what students were attending, he said.

“Had it been a final exam, we’d have a roster, we’d have handed it over. We’d know exactly who was in the room because everyone shows up for a final,” he said, when pressed about why it is taking so long for the school to tell investigators what students where there.

Study sessions, however, are optional, the provost said, “so we don’t know exactly what fraction of the overall roster turned out for a voluntary review session.”

Earlier, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said there is no evidence so far that indicates the shooting was targeted at a specific person.

https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/brown-university-shooting-suspect-12-17-25?t=1766011161588

It may be optional to attend the study session, but the university knows which students are signed up for the class that was being studied, so they do have a list of students who were possibly there.
I am going to open up my filter here and say that the people doling out information at the press conferences are ridiculously stupid. I don’t believe a word they are saying. Somebody needs to remove them all from this investigation.

 

[justtrish]

The bizarreness started when the shooter successfully fled, and it's continued with him being unidentified to this point. Overwhelmingly, mass shooters don't intend to get away with with it. Total outlier, which only increases the possibilities as far as just about anything goes, to include this not being your standard "lone world" act.

Which is something I would have bet a lot of money on initially.

There's just got to be something on video somewhere that shows how this person (or these persons) arrived.

Maybe there was a target and that person wasn't there. He left because he realized who he was after wasn't in the class? He didn't go out with a bang because he didn't accomplish his task?

OR He quit shooting because there was some issue with his gun. maybe out of bullets or jammed? If he intended to kill himself after, maybe he couldn't due to either of those things?

 

[LAhiker]

Here

"Moment Brown University suspect
WALKS PAST police officers
after college shooting.

The Brown University shooting suspect
is seen in shocking new footage
casually strolling past police officers working at the scene."

Moment Brown University suspect WALKS PAST police after shooting

Investigators on Tuesday released a video timeline of the unidentified suspect in the moments before and after gunfire rang out on December 13, killing two students and injuring nine others.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Thank you. Does anyone have a link to the original video, from law enforcement? I don't trust the Daily Mail and I don't see other media sources mentioning this (which doesn't mean they don't do so). So I just want to double-check the video and its timestamp. Thanks!

 

[Curiousobserver]

The bizarreness started when the shooter successfully fled, and it's continued with him being unidentified to this point. Overwhelmingly, mass shooters don't intend to get away with with it. Total outlier, which only increases the possibilities as far as just about anything goes, to include this not being your standard "lone world" act.

Which is something I would have bet a lot of money on initially.

There's just got to be something on video somewhere that shows how this person (or these persons) arrived.

To be honest his behavior is so out of the ordinary I am starting to wonder if he is even the right guy. Where is all the video of him leaving the scene?

 

[Dotta]

From Local Press - "Providence Journal"

"Questions
about motive, target, video footage
continue to be raised.

Did the shooter yell something before shooting?​

Perez said that law enforcement officials are investigating claims that the shooter yelled something during the shooting.
Attorney General Peter Neronha said some eyewitnesses have said he yelled,
others have said he didn't,
but he said there was nothing yet that indicates a motive.

On what floor of Barus & Holley did the shooting occur?​

Professor Rachel Friedberg confirmed to other media outlets
that the attack occurred during a review session for her principles of economics class.
A Brown student explained that the shots were fired in Room 166,
one of the large auditorium-style lecture halls
on the first floor of the seven-floor Barus & Holley building at 184 Hope St.

Did the shooter target Brown University?

'What I can tell you is that this individual definitely targeted Brown University',
Perez said.
He did not indicate why the university was targeted."

And more:

https://eu.providencejournal.com/story/news/crime/2025/12/17/brown-university-shooting-why-no-more-video-more-suspects/87816631007/

 

[MassGuy]

To be honest his behavior is so out of the ordinary I am starting to wonder if he is even the right guy. Where is all the video of him leaving the scene?

He hung around on side streets with just home security cameras to capture him. He fled the same way. He picked a part of the building with very few university cameras, which also complicates things.

I'm confident he's the right guy, as they would have had witnesses look at that those images and verify it was the same person.