A shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, during a final exam review session left two students dead and nine others injured, prompting a campus-wide shelter-in-place order and a large law-enforcement response. Authorities said early Sunday they had detained a person of interest at a hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, as FBI Director Kash Patel pledged an around-the-clock investigation and a Democratic senator blamed President Donald Trump’s policies for rising violence.
The shooting took place on Saturday during a final exam review session at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, according to multiple law-enforcement briefings and university officials. Reports from Brown and local authorities state that the gunman opened fire inside a classroom in the Barus & Holley engineering and physics building on Hope Street, triggering an immediate lockdown and a shelter‑in‑place order covering the campus and nearby neighborhoods.
Officials have said that two students were killed and nine other people were wounded in the attack. Several of the injured remained in critical or critical but stable condition as of Sunday, while at least one victim had been discharged from the hospital, according to updates from Providence officials and local media.
Early Sunday, authorities announced that a person of interest had been detained in connection with the shooting. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said at a morning news conference that the individual was taken into custody at a hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island, after investigators followed leads that included cellphone geolocation data. ABC News and other outlets reported that the man was found with two firearms, including a handgun with a laser sight, and that he was not a Brown student. Providence police said that no other suspects were being sought at that time, and the shelter‑in‑place order was lifted.
“We are able to report that we have detained a person of interest involved in yesterday’s shooting,” Smiley said, according to remarks reported by The Daily Wire and other news organizations. “The people of Providence should breathe a little easier this morning.” Colonel Oscar Perez, chief of the Providence Police Department, said the person in custody was an adult male and reiterated that investigators were not actively searching for additional suspects.
FBI Director Kash Patel outlined the federal response in a post on X, detailed by The Daily Wire. Patel said that FBI Boston had established a command post to intake, develop, and analyze leads and that the bureau activated its Cellular Analysis Survey Team to provide geolocation support. “As a result, early this morning, FBI Boston’s Safe Streets Task Force, with assistance from the U.S. Marshals and the Coventry RI PD, detained a person of interest in a hotel room in Coventry, RI, based off a lead by the Providence PD,” Patel wrote.
Patel added that the FBI had deployed local and national resources to process and reconstruct the shooting scene, set up a digital media intake portal to collect images and video from the public, and integrated FBI victim specialists with local partners to support victims and survivors. He pledged that, “This FBI will continue an all out 24/7 campaign until justice is fully served,” and urged people to continue praying for the victims, their families, and the Brown community.
Brown University President Christina Paxson faced pointed questioning at a Saturday evening news conference over how much information she had six hours after the attack. According to video cited by The Daily Wire, a reporter pressed Paxson on what exactly had been happening in the classroom when the shooter entered. Paxson, who said she had been in Washington, D.C., when she first learned of the shooting and had flown back to Providence, replied at the time that she did not yet know those details and was still catching up on briefings.
The university postponed remaining final exams and later announced broader changes to the exam schedule. As reported by The Daily Wire, Brown officials ultimately canceled all final exams for the term and encouraged students to leave campus if they were able to do so. In a message to the community, the provost advised, “For the moment, we encourage everyone to focus on their own safety and well‑being,” while the university expanded mental‑health and counseling services in the wake of the shooting.
In Washington, the political response to the attack quickly unfolded on Sunday. Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and a prominent advocate of stricter gun laws, appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and linked the Brown shooting and broader trends in violent incidents to decisions made by President Donald Trump’s administration. According to The Daily Wire’s account of the interview, Murphy argued that Trump had been “engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country,” citing what he described as recent policy shifts on firearms and federal anti‑violence programs.
Murphy claimed that the White House had moved to roll back certain restrictions on gun ownership for some people with criminal records, dismantled a federal office focused on gun‑violence prevention, and reduced funding for mental‑health and anti‑violence initiatives that were part of a bipartisan 2022 law. Those assertions reflect Murphy’s characterization of Trump‑era policy and have not been independently laid out by the Justice Department or the White House in relation to the Brown case.
The Daily Wire further reported that a Justice Department rule restoring gun rights to some felons was defended by Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who said the change was intended to address what she described as overly broad, permanent disenfranchisement of Americans with criminal histories. Her comments, as quoted by the outlet, emphasized giving certain former offenders a path to regaining rights after meeting specific legal criteria.
As local, state, and federal authorities continue their investigation, Brown’s campus remains under heightened security. Portions of the university, including the area around Barus & Holley, have been treated as active crime scenes with restricted access while forensic teams document evidence. Officials have urged students, faculty, and residents who may have video or other information related to the shooting or the detained person of interest to submit it through official law‑enforcement channels.
