Brown University taking pictures: Two individuals useless and a number of individuals shot as police seek for suspect | EUROtoday

Two college students are useless and at the very least 9 others are injured after a gunman fired right into a classroom at a prestigious Ivy League college in Rhode Island and appeared to stroll off campus with no hint.

Saturday’s mass taking pictures at Brown University in Providence pressured campus buildings and elements of town into lockdown, with college students barricading themselves in buildings for hours whereas tons of of legislation enforcement officers swarmed town.

The suspect appeared to have escaped earlier than police arrived and — aside from one transient surveillance video exhibiting an individual wearing black rounding a nook exterior the campus — all however disappeared.

More than 400 legislation enforcement officers — many from surrounding communities and a few from the federal authorities — descended on town to affix the manhunt whereas others cleared college buildings and evacuated college students.

Officials ordered residents to shelter in place as sirens flashed all through the neighborhood. Students hid beneath desks, whereas bride and groom have been pressured to shelter at their wedding ceremony venue, based on WPRI.

A gunman fired right into a closing examination evaluation session for a Principles of Economics class, based on economics professor Rachel Friedberg. The classroom was on the bottom flooring of an engineering constructing on campus and seems no different school rooms or buildings have been focused, based on officers.

Chang-heng Chien, 32, a PhD scholar on the college, informed the Providence Journal that he and three others have been working in a lab after they obtained a textual content from the college that an energetic taking pictures was underway roughly one block away.

Chien and different college students locked the lab doorways, turned off the lights, and hid beneath their desks for roughly two hours till police arrived and evacuated them from the constructing, he mentioned.

Max McCord, a Brown University junior, informed The Washington Post that his girlfriend — one other scholar on the faculty — informed him her brother had been shot by means of his thigh.

She referred to as him at 4:15 p.m. ET to inform him about her brother’s damage, he mentioned. The scholar mentioned her brother had been learning within the engineering constructing when the suspect started taking pictures.

McCord, who’s from Pittsburgh, mentioned his girlfriend’s brother was within the hospital however was recovering nicely.

He mentioned that whereas he was speaking to his girlfriend, his roommate burst into their room, winded, after operating when he heard gun photographs.

The younger males have been in lockdown for hours after the taking pictures.

Across Providence, the Providence Place Mall shut its doorways early, as did some close by nightclubs and bars. Police gathered exterior the AMP music venue to guard a Goose rock live performance, and the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, who’re set to play the New England Patriots on Sunday afternoon, have been pressured to shelter in a downtown lodge.

Back at Brown, two college students needed to re-live among the most horrific occasions that they had ever skilled.

Mia Tretta, a junior at Brown University, was wounded in a faculty taking pictures at her highschool in Santa Clarita, California, in 2019, she informed NBC News.

She was on campus when she obtained a flood of textual content messages and alerts about an energetic shooter on campus.

“No one on this nation even assumes it’s going to occur to them,” she told the outlet. “Once it happens to you, you assume or are told it will never happen again. And obviously that is not the case.”

She said her community at Brown is “in shambles” after the attack.

Zoe Weissman, 20, is a sophomore at Brown University. She survived the 2018 mass taking pictures at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the place 17 individuals have been killed and one other 18 have been injured.

She informed MS NOW that she is “really angry that this is happening to me all over again.”

“And I’m just in shock,” she mentioned.

After she survived the 2019 assault, “I have not been the same person I was that day ever again, and I assume it won’t be any different for the students at Brown,” she mentioned.

There have been at the very least 154 incidents of gunfire at colleges within the United States to date this yr, based on gun security advocacy group Everytown. At least 49 individuals have been killed and 135 injured within the assaults.

“Students on college campuses should be preparing for final exams and winter break — not enduring yet another all too familiar tragedy caused by gun violence,” Everytown president John Feinblatt mentioned in a press release. “While we await details, one thing is clear: today’s shooting at Brown University is another unacceptable reminder of our nation’s gun violence crisis. We either take action, or we bury more of our kids.”

While students hid or scrambled to a Providence reunification site, the shooter remained somewhere in the dark.

Across three evening press briefings, reporters peppered officials, asking how there could be so little information about the suspect nearly four, seven and eight hours after the attack.

Asked whether officials believed the shooter was still in the area, Mayor Brett Smiley told reporters “we don’t know.”

In a video launched late Saturday evening, a suspect may be seen wearing all black strolling away from the engineering constructing and turning a nook earlier than disappearing off-frame. There is not any gun within the picture, and the shooter’s face shouldn’t be seen.

“We know there is no clear shot of the face,” Mayor Smiley mentioned.

Law enforcement and native officers requested residents within the space to test their doorbell and exterior cameras for any signal of the shooter, or to name in any ideas, irrespective of how small.

After the taking pictures, President Donald Trump provided his condolence to the victims.

“I’ve been fully briefed on the Brown University situation, what a terrible thing it is, and all we can do right now is pray for the victims and for those that were very badly hurt it looks like,” Trump informed reporters as he returned to the White House. “We’ll inform you later as to what’s happening, but it’s a shame,”