Reuters : Police in Rhode Island were searching for a suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Providence in which two people died and eight were critically wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.
Streets around campus remained blocked off hours after the shooting and law enforcement officials heightened security around the city as police continued their manhunt.
Providence officials told reporters at a news conference that police are looking for a male dressed in black and were scouring local video cameras in the area for footage to get a better description of the suspect. Officials said the gunman escaped after shooting people in Brown’s Barus & Holley engineering building, where exams were taking place at the time.
“We are a week and a half away from Christmas. And two people died today and another eight are in the hospital,” Mayor Brett Smiley said. “So please pray for those families.”
Officials could not yet disclose details about the victims, including whether they were students, Smiley said.
Brown is on College Hill in Providence, Rhode Island’s state capital. The university has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories and dormitories.
As news of the shooting spread, the school told students to shelter in place.
Brown University student Chiang-Heng Chien told local TV station WJAR he was working in a lab with three other students when he saw the text about the active shooter situation a block away. They waited under desks for about two hours, he said.
