FBI Widens Net In Hunt For Brown University Shooter

FBI experts on Tuesday combed through the vicinity of a weekend mass shooting that killed two students at the elite Brown University as the hunt for clues to identify the gunman dragged into a fourth day.

Images posted by the bureau on social media showed laboratory specialists and evidence response teams conducting a forensic search on the snow-covered grounds outside the Providence, Rhode Island campus.

The shooting happened Saturday in a building where exams were underway on the Ivy League campus when a man with a rifle burst in and opened fire before fleeing.

Authorities initially detained a man in connection with the shooting, but they later released him, saying he was unconnected.

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The FBI, which is offering a $50,000 reward for the suspect’s capture, said he should be considered “armed and dangerous” and described him as “approximately 5 foot 8 inches with a stocky build.”

The shooter remains at large despite authorities releasing a glut of surveillance footage of the masked suspect fleeing the scene on foot.

On Tuesday, Brown University called on its students who may have been in the area of the shooting Saturday to arrange for a police interview.

“Even an incidental detail may be helpful in investigating,” the university said.

The two students killed were Ella Cook, vice president of Brown’s Republican association, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, originally from Uzbekistan, who had hoped to become a neurosurgeon.

“Ella, who came to Brown from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was a passionate and intellectually curious member of our community who was interested in French and Francophone studies,” Brown president Christina H. Paxson said.

“Mukhammad… was known for being driven, conscientious and disciplined, particularly as he pursued his deep ambition to make a positive impact in the world by becoming a neurosurgeon.”

The attack is the latest incident of mass shooting in the United States, where attempts to restrict access to firearms face political deadlock.

There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.

During a Christmas event Sunday at the White House, US President Donald Trump spoke briefly about the shooting, saying “things can happen” and wishing the injured to “get well fast.”

Brown, which has around 11,000 students, issued an emergency alert on Saturday following reports of a shooting near its engineering and physics departments. Two exams had been scheduled at the time.

AFP