A gunman dressed in black shot 10 people, killing two of them, on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday afternoon, local officials said. Hours after the attack, no one was in custody, and the university and surrounding neighborhoods were on lockdown.
The eight injured people were in critical but stable condition, officials said at an evening news conference. It was unclear how many of the victims were students.
“The unthinkable has happened,” Gov. Dan McKee of Rhode Island said at the news conference.
The shootings took place in an engineering building on campus around 4 p.m. Talib Reddick, the president of Brown’s Undergraduate Council of Students, said that the building was a popular study spot and probably was full of students on Saturday given that they are in the middle of final exams.
Rodney Chatman, Brown’s police chief, described the shooting investigation as “a very fluid situation.” University officials twice sent out incorrect alerts to students and faculty members, saying at one point that a suspect had been taken into custody before reversing that, then reporting around 5:30 p.m. that more shots had been fired near campus. They later backtracked and said that report was also incorrect.
Police said they believed the shooter acted alone, but Saturday night they knew almost nothing about him, other than the color of his clothing. They said they were working to find video footage to help identify him.
Ansel Edison, an 18-year-old freshman, was on the ground floor of the science library when he saw police cars pulling up outside with “a legion” of officers.
People started running from the engineering building and into the science library. “A panicked student came in and said there had been 20 shots fired,” Edison said.
Owen Fick, a junior, was outside on an errand when he saw heavily armed police officers in protective gear running down the street.
“I really had no idea what was going on, but then it became really apparent,” said Fick, who watched as officers appeared to sweep a building. He added: “There were a lot of ambulances, a lot of cop cars, fire trucks. They just had a lot of gurneys.”
He rushed to a dorm room to shelter in place.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
