The shooting suspect in the Brown University attack and MIT murder was found deceased with a self-inflicted gunshot wound Thursday, capping six days of wall-to-wall coverage of a law enforcement manhunt.
What follows is a compilation of the news that broke day-by-day as officials sought, and ultimately found, their suspect:
- Brown University Shooting: Shortly after 4 p.m. a suspect opened fire in a classroom during a finals review session in the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building. Two people were killed in the attack and nine others injured.
- The Brown University professor in whose classroom the shooting occurred said the attacker “yelled something” before he started shooting.
- CNN noted that a teaching assistant who was in the classroom said, “He came in, pointed the gun, and then screamed something. I don’t know what he said, and none of the other students know what he said. Then he just started shooting right after that.”
- Law enforcement was able to ascertain that the attacker used a 9mm handgun, firing approximately 40 rounds.
- A 24-year-old Wisconsin man — referred to only as a “person of interest” — was detained by police Sunday morning, only to be released hours later.
- The manhunt restarted in earnest once the 24-year-old was released, with law enforcement making clear they had a new “person of interest.”
- On Monday, police released video of the new “person of interest,” and would spend the next four days searching for the individual.
- Also Monday, the FBI released photos of the “person of interest” and announced a $50,000 reward “for information leading to the identification, arrest, and conviction of the individual.”
- The FBI warned that the “person of interest” should be considered “armed and dangerous.”
- Also on Monday, MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was found inside his home with numerous gunshot wounds. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died.
- During a Tuesday press conference, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha (D) admitted there are “fewer, if any” cameras in the area in which Saturday’s shooting at Brown University occurred. (This was part of Neronha explaining why the footage/photos of the “person of interest” consisted of video and images taken in a nearby neighborhood rather than inside the school building.)
- On Wednesday, the Providence Police Department released photos showing an individual they say “was in proximity of the person of interest.”
- Wednesday night/Thursday morning: Officials indicated they had recovered DNA and fingerprints from shell casings at the Brown University crime scene.
- On Thursday morning, Breitbart News reported that Brown University campus safety chief Rodney Chatman lost a previous job at University of Utah after lacking the credentials necessary to hold the position. (FOX News’ Jesse Watters had noted that Chatman was notably missing from press conferences that had occurred daily since the Brown University shooting.)
- Midday Thursday, law enforcement announced they had identified the “person of interest,” although that identity was not shared with the public.
- Later Thursday, law enforcement made clear they were eyeing a connection between the Brown University attack and the MIT murder.
- Thursday night, television screens were filled with wall-to-wall coverage of law enforcement converging on a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where they believed the Brown University shooting suspect might be holed up. (Law enforcement was able to track him to that facility via a vehicle they traced to the suspect.)
- The Providence Journal reported that a Brown University faculty member contacted the Rhode Island State Police about a suspicious vehicle she had seen on campus two days before Saturday’s shooting. The car was “a gray sedan with a Florida license plate” and the call “helped lead to a license plate number.”
- Law enforcement entered the specific storage bin rented to the shooting suspect and discovered the suspect deceased of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- During a press conference that followed the discovery of the shooting suspect’s body, Providence police chief Colonel Oscar Perez noted that a video provided law enforcement with information that led to the vehicle which they traced to the suspect. The pursuit of the vehicle “led to a car rental place,” from which law enforcement gathered footage of the suspect.
- Perez indicated that the deceased suspect was “a Portuguese national.”
- Also during the Thursday night presser, officials made clear the deceased shooting suspect had a satchel that matched the satchel they had seen on him in videos and photos. Law enforcement also found two firearms.
- On Friday morning, it was revealed the Brown University shooting suspect attended school in Portugal with the slain MIT professor.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.