Brown University shooting: Person of interest to be released even as officials say, "We have not yet solved this case"

Brown University witnessed a horrifying mass shooting on Saturday, December 13, 2025, which killed two students and injured about nine individuals. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials are investigating the incident while they have arrested a person of interest. However, they also mentioned that the person might be released soon.

Officials have confirmed that multiple agencies have collected evidence related to the incident that took place at the university's engineering and physics building. According to reports by the BBC, authorities do not have enough evidence to build a strong case against the detained person and prosecute him. As per Rhode Island Current reports, officials said,

"We have not yet solved this case."

Meanwhile, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha stated that the evidence "now points in a different direction." During a press-conference, Neronha shared insights into the investigation and said,

"I've been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and you have to regroup and go in another and that is what has happened over the last 24 hours or so."

Neronha addressed the situation in which several news agencies named the person of interest who was a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin.

"What is really unfortunate is that this person's name was leaked to the public. It'a hard to put that back in the bottle," said the Rhode Island Attorney General.

Peter Neronha refrained from revealing the reason of eliminating the detained person as a person of interest in the Brown University shooting

During the press release, Peter Neronha opened up about the investigation but refrained from sharing a lot of details about it. The Rhode Island Attorney General said that they would not give away the their further plans, for the sake of the investigation. The officers have not yet revealed the identities of the victims who died.

Among the none injured students, eight are reportedly admitted to the Rhode Island Hospital. According to Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, officers are looking into discovering more video evidence related to the mass shooting. Speaking about the decision to releasing the detained individual, Neronha said,

"We can detain someone for a reasonable period of time if there is evidence as such that points to that person being involved in criminal activity. So you know, evidence doesn’t appear on your doorstep and you have answers to it within the first 15 minutes."

Neronha continued by stating,

"So over the course of the day, while we're following up leads elsewhere, those initial leads may come back positive or may come back negative. Here they came back negative."

A reporters asked him whether they possessed any additional video footage related to the case. This prompted Neronha to respond saying that the media would have it already if they had anything significant. He reiterated that the authorities are not "holding back video that we think would be useful, and I don’t think I should even have to say it."

He was further asked if the man in the CCTV footage was the same as the one they detained. To this, Neronha said that "do not have enough evidence to corroborate that." The case is an ongoing investigation.