Two people were killed, and nine others were injured in the shooting, officials say.
FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau used geolocation capabilities to track down a person of interest in a shooting that occurred at Rhode Island’s Brown University on Saturday.
Two people were killed, and nine others were injured, according to Providence Mayor Brett Smiley. Brown University President Christina Paxson said she was told that 10 of the people who were shot were students. Another person was struck by fragments from the shooting, authorities said.
“We activated the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team, to provide critical geolocation capabilities,” Patel said in an update on X on Sunday. Patel said that the FBI, authorities in Providence, the U.S. Marshals Service, and other agencies were then able to detain a person of interest in the case. The suspect was found in a hotel room in Coventry, Rhode Island, he said.
An update on the @FBI response at Brown University:@FBIBoston established a command post to intake, develop and analyze leads, and run them to ground.
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) December 14, 2025
We activated the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team, to provide critical geolocation capabilities.
As a result, early… pic.twitter.com/KONDEbrduR
Col. Oscar Perez, Providence police chief, said on Sunday afternoon that the person in custody was in his or her 20s, and that no one has been charged yet.
The person of interest has yet to be identified publicly. No motive has yet been established.
Over the weekend, surveillance video released by police showed someone dressed in dark clothing and a hat, calmly walking away from the scene on a street corner. No other footage of the individual has been made public.
Smiley invited residents to gather Sunday evening in a city park where an event had been scheduled to light a Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah.
“For those who know at least a bit of the Hanukkah story, it is quite clear that if we can come together as a community to shine a little bit of light tonight, there’s nothing better that we can be doing,” he told reporters.
Smiley said he visited some of the wounded students and was inspired by their courage, hope, and gratitude. One told him that active shooting drills from high school proved helpful.
The FBI also “deployed local and national resources to process and reconstruct the shooting scene—providing HQ and Lab elements on scene,” Patel said in his post, referring to FBI headquarters and laboratory resources. “We set up a digital media intake portal to ingest images and video from the public related to this incident.
“And the FBI’s victim specialists are fully integrating with our partners to provide resources to victims and survivors of this horrific violence,” he said.
In response to the shooting, Brown University announced Sunday that all remaining classes and academic activities for the semester will be postponed indefinitely.
