A person of interest detained over the shooting at Brown University that left two dead and nine injured has been released as law enforcement continues to hunt for the gunman, officials said late Sunday. 

That announcement came one day after a gunman wearing all black stormed an engineering building and opened fire on a group of students studying for finals. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said that evidence pointed law enforcement in a different direction. 

“There was some degree of evidence that pointed to this individual, but that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed,” he said at a press conference on Sunday. “That evidence now points in a different direction. So what that means is that this person of interest needs to be, and should be released.”

Neronha added that it was unfortunate that specific information about the person of interest had been leaked to the media. 

“I think what is really unfortunate [is] that this person’s name was leaked to the public. It’s hard to put that back in the bottle, OK? So we’re going to proceed very carefully here,” he said. “
There is too much at stake for the victims of this horrific crime and their families to take chances with respect to this investigation.”

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When the person of interest was initially detained by law enforcement, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said that authorities were not looking for anyone else in connection with the attack. Perez said Sunday that the person of interest was not the individual captured on video that was released by the police department. Law enforcement is still looking for the person shown in the video.

Video of person of interest in Brown shooting: pic.twitter.com/fjufQ3MTdC

— Providence Police (@ProvidenceRIPD) December 14, 2025

At the same press conference, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said the investigation was ongoing but that they did not believe there was any ongoing threat to the community.  

“We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community, and we want to reiterate what we said earlier, which remains true, which is ever since the initial call, now a day and a half ago, we have not received any credible or specific threats to the Providence community,” he said. 

Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee said he spoke with FBI Director Kash Patel before the press conference to inform him that the person of interest would be released. He said Patel told him federal resources would continue to be provided while the search was ongoing. 

The world reeled on Sunday with news of one deadly shooting at Rhode Island’s Brown University and another at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia — and somehow, Democrats tied both to President Donald Trump and American firearm policies.

For those who don’t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week’s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.

The two attacks, based on multiple reports, could not be more different aside from the method used to carry them out.

At Brown University, a masked gunman barged into a classroom where students were reviewing for an economics exam and opened fire, killing two and wounding several others. Initial reports stated that the suspect “shouted something” but it was not clear what. The suspect fled the scene, but local authorities and FBI Director Kash Patel announced that a “person of interest” was apprehended within a matter of hours.

On the other side of the world, in Australia, at least two suspects opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. They killed at least 15 and wounded others. One of the shooters was briefly interrupted when a civilian charged him, wrestled his firearm away, and then held him at gunpoint. He eventually was able to run to where he’d stashed another firearm, and immediately started shooting again.

In an interview with Ali Velshi that aired on MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) addressed both shootings.

WATCH:

Ilhan Omar asked about shoot*ngs at Brown and in Australia on MSNOW:

“It is a tragedy that this has become a normal occurrence not just in the United States…”

“…but now seeing it in Australia, who’s worked really hard to create gun prevention laws to prevent the kind of… pic.twitter.com/oatZmnVUX5

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) December 14, 2025

“This is yet another bad day for America,” Velshi prompted.

“Yeah, we are still recovering from the shooting at Annunciation church,” Omar began, referencing a school shooting that had taken place just weeks earlier in her home state. “It is a tragedy that this has become a normal occurrence, not just in the United States but now seeing it in Australia who’s worked really hard to create gun prevention laws to prevent the kind of tragedy that took place today.”

Omar made no mention of the fact that the shooting in Australia had taken place in spite of that nation enacting the kind of restrictive gun laws that she and others within the Democratic Party would be only too happy to foist on the American people. She also gave no attention to the obvious motive in the Bondi Beach shooting, in which Australian Jews were targeted while celebrating Hanukkah together.

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) laid the blame for the Brown University shooting at President Trump’s feet, claiming that he’d been engaging in an active “campaign” to promote more and more violence.

WATCH:

In the wake of the Brown University shooting, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy tells Dana Bash that President Trump “has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely in this country.” pic.twitter.com/FSSbCqWrRo

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 14, 2025

“It’s not shocking, because over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country,” Murphy began, clearly insinuating that the Trump administration was encouraging violence.

“He’s restoring gun rights to felons and to people who have lost their ability to buy guns, he eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022 bill,” Murphy continued.

“He has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely, and I think you’re unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America,” he said.

Murphy was referencing a rule proposed by Trump’s Justice Department in July – a rule that would allow certain people with criminal records to have their Second Amendment rights restored, but only after they were evaluated to ensure that they did not actually pose a risk to others.

CNN anchor Dana Bash pressed Murphy on that assertion, saying, “That’s a pretty big statement, he’s in a campaign to make violence more likely?”

“Of course! I mean, he’s knowingly restoring gun rights to dangerous people. He is cutting off grants that have bipartisan support to try to interrupt violence in our cities, or to try to get necessary mental health resources to families and children in need,” Murphy claimed. “The evidence tells you that when you stop funding mental health, when you stop funding community anti-gun violence programs, when you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you are going to have increase in violence. That is knowable and that is foreseeable.”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Senator Raphael Warnock — who also supports restrictive gun laws — weighed in on the Brown University shooting and suggested that it had occurred because legislators had not done enough to limit access to firearms.

WATCH:

Any nation that tolerates violence like this year after year, decade after decade is broken and in need of moral repair. pic.twitter.com/5q2d0rCZmG

— Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (@SenatorWarnock) December 14, 2025

“We have to pray not only with our lips but with our actions,” Warnock told anchor Kristen Welker. “Any nation that tolerates this kind of violence year after year, decade after decade, in random places, on our college and school campuses, without doing all that we can to stop it is broken and in need of moral repair.”

Just hours earlier, Warnock made a similar comment in a post on X, saying, “Saddened by the tragic news of the shooting at Brown University. May God give peace to the parents and families of the victims, strength and courage to our country to do all we can to stem the awful scourge of gun violence.”