Manhunt continues after deadly Brown University mass shooting
A bouquet is left outside of the engineering and physics building at Brown University, the site of a mass shooting yesterday that left at least two people dead and nine others injured, on December 14, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Federal and local law enforcement officials in Rhode Island were continuing their search early on Monday for an assailant who fatally shot two Brown University students on Saturday in an academic building in Providence.
A person of interest in the case, who had been taken into custody early on Sunday, was released later in the day, after authorities said that there was no basis to continue detaining them.
“Tonight, we announced that the person of interest is being released. The investigation has been ongoing and remains fully active between all agencies,” the Providence Police Department said in a statement early on Monday. “Since the first call to 911, we have not received any specific threats to our community.”
Two people were killed and nine were injured in the shooting, according to officials. The injured victims were transported to local hospitals amid a day of “devastating gun violence,” Christina H. Paxson, the university’s president, said in a statement posted early on Sunday.
“Every year, emergency responders and students drill for the unthinkable — a shooting at our schools,” Gov. Dan McKee said in his own statement. “Yesterday, that action became all too real when a gunman opened fire on a classroom of innocent Brown University students.”
The FBI and other law enforcement officials shared a short video clip of someone whom they described as a person of interest. The individual in the clip is seen dressed in dark clothing, including what appeared to be a hood, as they walk along Hope Street and take a corner heading north.
The person’s right hand appeared to be in their jacket pocket as they walked northward along Waterman Street before exiting from the frame.
Officials said they still believe the person seen in that video is a person of interest in the shooting.
The person of interest who was detained and released on Sunday was initially caught at about 3:45 a.m. at a hotel in Coventry, about 28 miles south of Providence, according to law enforcement sources and Coventry police.
Law enforcement sources described the person of interest as a man in his mid-20s from Wisconsin. At the time the person was detained, the individual was allegedly in possession of two guns, according to sources.
There was “no basis” to keep the person detained, Attorney General of Rhode Island Peter Neronha said.
“Sometimes you head in one direction and have to regroup and go in another,” Neronha said. “That’s exactly what’s happened over the last 24 hours or so.”
Police officers remain on the scene of a shooting that killed two and wounded at least eight at Brown University on December 13, 2025 in Providence, Rhode Island. (Libby O’Neill/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Two elite Northeast institutions of higher education have been rocked by horrific acts of gun violence, just days apart.
In the first incident, two people were killed and nine were injured in a mass shooting at Brown University, when a gunman opened fire on the Rhode Island campus, officials said.
Two days later, some 50 miles away in neighboring Massachusetts, an esteemed professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was killed in a shooting at his home, officials said.
Following a dayslong manhunt, authorities identified the suspect in both shootings as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old former Brown graduate student, who attended the school some 25 years ago. Valente, a Portuguese national, and the slain MIT professor both attended the same physics engineering program at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, the school confirmed to ABC News.
Officials have not yet provided a motive for the back-to-back shootings that left residents of parts of New England on edge for days.
Here’s how the tragic shootings unfolded.
Nov. 26-Nov. 30
Valente, who is believed to have lived in Florida, rents a hotel room in Boston, according to federal officials.
Dec. 1
Valente rents a gray Nissan Sentra with Florida plates from a car rental agency in Boston and then drives to the vicinity of Brown University in Providence, where the vehicle is seen “intermittently” through Dec. 12, according to federal officials.
Dec. 13
A person of interest in the Brown shooting — subsequently believed to be the suspect, Valente — is seen in surveillance footage walking through a residential neighborhood near the campus, beginning around 2 p.m., in images and footage released by the FBI. But police have said they believe he had been around the Brown campus as early as 10 a.m. that day “casing out the area.” The individual is seen dressed from head to toe in dark clothing, including wearing a surgical mask over his face.
Around 2:16 p.m., an unknown person — later identified as a man who introduced himself as John — is seen interacting with the person of interest, according to the arrest warrant affidavit for Valente.
The shooting at Brown occurs at 4:03 p.m. in a lecture hall in the school’s Barus & Holley Engineering building during a final exam review, according to authorities and school officials.
Just after the shooting, a security video captures the person of interest emerging onto Hope Street from what investigators described as “lot 42” on the Brown campus.
The last video in the FBI’s timeline shows the individual walking north on Hope Street at 4:07 p.m.
Valente returns to Massachusetts over the next day, where at some point he switches the plates on his rental car to an unregistered plate out of Maine, according to federal officials.
Dec. 14
A man initially thought to be a person of interest in the Brown shooting is detained at about 3:45 a.m. at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Providence, according to law enforcement sources and police, though that individual is released hours later without being charged.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha says during a late-night press conference that there had been evidence pointing to this individual, but that evidence “now points in a different direction.”
Dec. 15
Authorities release new images and video of the person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown and the FBI announces it is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the individual responsible.
That night, authorities respond to a residence in Brookline, Massachusetts, after receiving a report of a man shot at his home, according to the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office.
The victim is identified by the office as 47-year-old Nuno Loureiro, a Portugal native who is a faculty member in MIT’s departments of Nuclear Science & Engineering and Physics and the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center.
Video surveillance captured Valente in the area of the professor’s apartment that evening, according to federal officials.
Following the shooting, Valente drives to a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, which he had rented in November, according to federal officials.
Dec. 16
Loureiro is pronounced dead at an area hospital in the morning, according to the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office.
Authorities release a new image and enhanced video of the person of interest sought in the Brown shooting.
Police received an anonymous tip in the investigation into the Brown shooting referencing a Reddit post in which the poster — later identified as John — called for police to “look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates,” according to the affidavit.
Dec. 17
A Brown University faculty member reports to state police seeing a suspicious vehicle in the area of the campus the morning of Dec. 11, describing it as a gray sedan with Florida plates, according to the affidavit.
Providence police announce they are seeking the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the unknown individual — later identified as John — “who was in proximity of the person of interest” in the Brown shooting.
John approaches Providence police officers at Brown University to report his interaction with the person of interest, according to the affidavit. He tells detectives that he saw the man approach a gray or silver sedan with a Florida license plate the afternoon of Dec. 13 at a location near Brown’s campus, according to the affidavit.
“John informed detectives that he recognized one of the images released to the press as the person he encountered that day, which prompted him to post on Reddit,” the affidavit states.
Detectives trace the vehicle to the one rented by Valente in Boston, according to the affidavit.
Dec. 18
A Rhode Island state court issues a state arrest warrant for Valente, charging him with two counts of murder and 23 felony counts of assault and felony firearms offenses in the Brown shooting.
While executing search warrants on the Salem storage unit facility shortly before 9 p.m., Valente is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit, authorities said.
During a late-night news conference, authorities identify the suspect in the Brown mass shooting as Valente and confirm he is believed to be the same man who gunned down Loureiro, saying the professor was the intended target.
Officials say investigators linked the Brown and MIT shootings through the vehicle, financial records and video footage.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin, Aaron Katersky, Jon Haworth and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.
Police intervene the protesters, at least 56 demonstrators were arrested after blocking traffic to the Brooklyn Bridge to end the Israeli attacks and establish a ceasefire in Gaza, following the Yom Kippur 2025 gathering at Brooklyn Borough Hall hosted by Rabbis for Ceasefire in New York City, United States, on October 2, 2025. (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — Almost 60 protestors were arrested on Yom Kippur after blocking traffic on New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge, authorities confirmed to ABC News.
The hundreds of people present at Thursday’s protest were members of the Rabbis for Ceasefire group that is comprised of Rabbis and Rabbinical students who support the free Palestine movement, according to the group.
The protest comes amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas War in Gaza that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, as reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, sparking demonstrations and protests all over the world calling for a ceasefire.
After being called to the scene of the Brooklyn Bridge demonstration, NYPD officers arrested almost 60 protestors as they clapped and sang in Hebrew, according to social media videos shared by protesters.
NYPD could not confirm if all of the protestors have been released from custody yet, or if they will be criminally charged.
The protest began a few hours earlier at Brooklyn Borough Hall, according to the group’s social media, with a Yizkor service, which is a special Jewish ceremony for those who have died. Yom Kippur is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, also known as the “Day of Atonement.”
NYPD told ABC News the protestors blocked all lanes of traffic on the bridge for one hour.
Rabbis for Ceasefire seeks to “collaborate with the broad Jewish Left ecosystem and multiracial, interfaith coalitions to practice a Judaism we can be proud of for future generations. R4C creates space for our communities to be with our horror, outrage, grief, shame, and fear while speaking spiritual and political truth,” according to their website.
The group sought to use the holiday to shine a spotlight on their activism, the website said.
“This Yom Kippur, though our grief, outrage, and despair, let us turn our most holy of holy days into a mass mourning, collective atonement, and dignified action,” the group wrote on their page about the protest.
The ongoing Gaza war erupted after Hamas led a surprise terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people there and taking 251 others hostage, according to figures from the Israeli government.
U.S. National Guard in Washington D.C. (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)
(PORTLAND, Ore.) — A federal judge on Sunday extended her order blocking President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Portland, continuing the legal battle over the president’s power to use the military on American cities.
Following a three-day trial last week, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the deployment of troops from any state’s National Guard into Portland through at least Friday.
Judge Immergut concluded that the attempt to send troops into Portland stemmed from exaggerated claims of violence in the city, where isolated protests were already contained by federal and local law enforcement.
“Based on the trial testimony, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months before the President’s federalization order, protests grew out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that resulted in no serious injuries to federal personnel,” she wrote.
Judge Immergut also concluded that the Trump administration likely violated a federal law that allows the takeover of the National Guard in the case of rebellion or invasion, as well as infringed on the state sovereignty of Oregon. The protests in Oregon, Immergut wrote, at most resulted in “sporadic isolated instances of violent behavior toward federal officers and property damage to a single building” and fell short of the standard definition of a “rebellion.”
“Defendants have not, however, proffered any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence were perpetrated by an organized group engaged in armed hostilities for the purpose of overtaking an instrumentality of government by unlawful or antidemocratic means,” she wrote.
The trial and decision follow a prolonged legal battle over the use of the National Guard in Portland. After Judge Immergut last month blocked the use of the Oregon National Guard, the Trump administration moved to send in troops from Texas and California.
She similarly blocked those troops from being sent into the city, and the Trump administration then appealed her order.
The Ninth Circuit briefly lifted her decision but agreed to rehear the case en banc, — when the entire court hears the case, rather than just a panel — thereby restoring the block on the deployment.
With both Immergut’s previously issued orders set to expire on Sunday, she issued a preliminary injunction tonight that will expire on Friday, at which time she plans to issue a complete ruling based on the testimony and evidence presented at trial.
