Providence: Police have detained a suspect who may be the perpetrator of the mass shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, USA, on Saturday afternoon, which killed two people and injured nine others. The Providence Police Chief of Rhode Island briefly stated yesterday that the individual is in his early 20s and that authorities believe he acted alone.
According to Thai News Agency, the FBI director posted an update that the man was apprehended at a hotel in Coventry, about a 30-minute drive from Brown University. Authorities used GPS tracking from his cell phone to locate him. Several media outlets, citing sources, identified the man as Benjamin Erickson, 24. The military stated that a man with the same last name served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army from May 2021 to November 2024, but could not confirm if this was the man apprehended.
The term “person of interest” refers to an individual whom the authorities believe may be involved in a crime, but who, due to insufficient evidence, has not yet been formally charged or arrested.
The president of Brown University announced that more than 2,000 students have been moved from on-campus dorms to temporary off-campus accommodations for safety reasons while parts of the university remain closed. The university has also canceled all remaining exams and classes for the year.
The shooting at Brown University was the 389th mass shooting in the United States this year, but it was the first to occur at one of the eight leading private universities in the northeast of the United States, known as the Ivy League.