PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A shooter dressed in black killed at least two people and wounded nine others at Brown University on Saturday during final exams on the Ivy League campus, authorities said, and police were searching for the suspect.
University President Christina Paxson said she was told that 10 people who were shot were students. Another person was injured by fragments from the shooting, but it was not clear if that victim was a student, she said.
Law enforcement officials carrying weapons gather Saturday near Brown University in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting.
Officers scattered across the campus and into an affluent neighborhood filled with historic and stately brick homes, searching academic buildings, backyards and porches late into the night after the shooting erupted in the afternoon.
The suspect was a man in dark clothing who was last seen leaving the engineering building where the attack happened, said Timothy O'Hara, deputy chief of Providence police.
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Security footage showed the suspect walking away from the building, but his face was not visible. Some witnesses reported that the man, who could be in his 30s, may have been wearing a camouflage mask, O'Hara said.
Investigators were not yet sure how the shooter got inside the first-floor classroom where he opened fire. Outer doors of the building were unlocked, but rooms being used for final exams required badge access, Providence's mayor said.
Ambulances line Hope Street at Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday after reports of a shooting.
Hunt for suspect quiets city streets
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.
"The unthinkable has happened," said Democratic Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, who vowed that all resources were being deployed to catch the suspect.
Mayor Brett Smiley said a shelter-in-place remained in effect and encouraged people living near the campus to stay inside or not return home until it is lifted. Streets that normally bustle with activity on weekends were eerily quiet.
Law enforcement officials walk Saturday near an entrance to Brown University in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting.
"The Brown community's heart is breaking, and Providence's heart is breaking along with it," Smiley said.
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.
Nine people with gunshot wounds were taken to Rhode Island Hospital, where one was in critical condition, said Kelly Brennan, a spokesperson for the hospital. Six required intensive care but were not getting worse, and two were stable, she said.
Police evacuated buildings
University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, but later said that was not the case. The mayor said a person preliminarily thought to be involved was detained but was later determined to have no involvement.
Emergency personnel gather Saturday at Hope and Waterman Streets at Brown University in Providence, R.I., after reports of a shooting.
Nearly five hours after the shooting, officers in tactical gear led students out of some campus buildings and into a fitness center.
The shooting occurred in the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the School of Engineering and physics department. According to the university's website, the building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices.
Engineering design exams were underway there when the shooting occurred.
Former 'Survivor' contestant had just left the building
Eva Erickson, a doctoral candidate who was a finalist 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.
Law enforcement officials carry rifles while walking on a street in a neighborhood near Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Saturday during the investigation of a shooting.
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.
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 and received a text about an active shooter shortly after 4 p.m.
"I'm just in here shaking," he said, watching through the window as a half-dozen armed officers in tactical gear surrounded his dorm.
Students hid under desks and inside stores
Students in a nearby lab hid under desks and turned off the lights after receiving an alert about the shooting, said Chiangheng Chien, a doctoral student in engineering who was about a block away from the scene.
A law enforcement official walks past articles of clothing on a sidewalk near an entrance to Brown University on Saturday in Providence, R.I., during the investigation of a shooting.
Mari Camara, 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.
Students are escorted by law enforcement officers to a building at Brown University after a shooting on Saturday in Providence, R.I.
President Donald Trump told reporters that he had been briefed and "all we can do right now is pray for the victims."
Rhode Island has some of the strictest gun laws in the U.S. Last spring the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed an assault weapon ban that will prohibit the sale and manufacturing of certain high-powered firearms, but not their possession, starting next July.
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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City and Durkin Richer from Washington. Associated Press journalists Mike Balsamo and Seung Min Kim in Washington, Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, and Martha Bellisle in Seattle contributed.
A list of deadly shootings on college campuses in the US
Dozens of patrol vehicles, including a forensics van, are stationed outside of Florida State University’s student union building April 17, 2025, in Tallahassee, Fla., after a shooting. Two people were killed and at least six others were wounded. The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect's mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon. Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, though rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school. Here is a look at other deadly shootings on U.S. college campuses in recent decades.
Michigan State University students embrace Feb. 14, 2023, at The Rock on the East Lansing, Mich., campus. A 43-year-old gunman fired inside an academic building and the student union, killing three students and injuring five others. He later killed himself miles away from the campus while being confronted by police. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
Amanda Perez, left, is comforted Dec. 6, 2023, by fellow student Alejandro Barron after a shooting on the University of Nevada campus in Las Vegas. A 67-year-old former business professor, whose applications to teach at UNLV were rejected, opened fire in the building housing the university's business school, killing three professors and badly wounding a fourth. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police outside the building.
A University of Virginia football player speaks Nov. 19, 2022, during a memorial service for three slain University of Virginia football players Lavel Davis Jr., D'Sean Perry and Devin Chandler at John Paul Jones Arena at the school in Charlottesville, Va. A student and former member of the school’s football team shot and killed the players on a charter bus as they returned from a field trip, setting off panic and a 12-hour lockdown of the campus until the suspect was captured. Two other students also were wounded on the campus. The shooter pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and other charges.
Authorities gather Oct. 9, 2015, outside a student dormitory in Flagstaff, Ariz., after an early morning fight between two groups of college students escalated into gunfire, authorities said. Just weeks into his freshman year, a student walked onto the Northern Arizona University campus in Flagstaff and opened fire. One student was killed and three others wounded. The shooter later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and aggravated assault and was sentenced to six years in prison.
Hannah Miles, a student at Umqua Community College, speaks with reporters Oct. 1, 2015, in Roseburg, Ore. A 26-year-old man opened fire on his writing class, killing his instructor and eight other people at the school, then killed himself. Miles said she was in the classroom next door to the shooting, which also wounded nine others.
A woman looks at bullet holes May 24, 2014, in a window of IV Deli Mark, where a mass shooting took place near the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, in the Isla Vista beach community. A 22-year-old college student frustrated over sexual rejections fatally stabbed or shot six students near the school and injured several others before he killed himself.
Santa Monica College students Gaby Contreras, left, and Andrea Garcia leave flowers at a memorial for those killed in a shooting at the school in Santa Monica, Calif. A deadly act of domestic violence at home turned public June 7, 2013, when a 23-year-old man left after killing his father and older brother, carjacked a woman and shot at other vehicles. He then entered the campus, where he previously was enrolled as a student, and opened fire, killing four more people before he was fatally shot by police in the school's library.
Maria Campomanes and her daughter Maelauni leave flowers for victims outside of Oikos University in Oakland, Calif. A former nursing student fatally shot seven people April 2, 2012, at the small private college in East Oakland, California. He was given seven consecutive life sentences and died in prison in 2019.
Mourners console each other after placing flowers at a memorial at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Ill. A 27-year-old former student shot and killed five people and wounded more than 20 others at the school Feb. 14, 2008, before killing himself.
Students gather on the campus of Virginia Tech for a candlelight vigil April 17, 2007, a day after a shooting, in Blacksburg, Va. In the deadliest shooting at a U.S. college, a 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus. More than two dozen others were wounded. The gunman then killed himself.
Smoke rises from a sniper's gun Aug. 1, 1966, as he fires at people from the tower of the University of Texas administration building in Austin, Texas. A Marine-trained sniper opened fire from atop the 27-story clock tower in the heart of the university's flagship campus in one of the nation's first mass shootings. He killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others before authorities shot and killed him.
