2 dead, 8 wounded in shooting at Brown University

A gunman dressed in black shot multiple people, killing two of them, and wounding nine others, on the campus of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday afternoon, local officials said.

Hours after the attack, no one was in custody, and the university and surrounding neighborhoods were on lockdown.

The nine injured people were in critical but stable condition, officials said at an evening news conference. It was later confirmed that at least two of the victims who were killed, were students.

“The unthinkable has happened,” Gov. Dan McKee of Rhode Island said at the news conference.

The shootings took place in an engineering building on campus around 4 p.m. Talib Reddick, the president of Brown’s Undergraduate Council of Students, said that the building was a popular study spot and probably was full of students Saturday given that they are in the middle of final exams.

Rodney Chatman, Brown’s police chief, described the shooting investigation as “a very fluid situation.” University officials twice sent out incorrect alerts to students and faculty members, saying at one point that a suspect had been taken into custody before reversing that, then reporting around 5:30 p.m. that more shots had been fired near campus. They later backtracked and said that report was also incorrect.

President Donald Trump, relying on those reports, at first said the shooter was in custody and then retracted it.

“God bless the victims and the families of the victims!” he said on social media, adding that the FBI was assisting the investigation.

Police said they believed the shooter acted alone, but Saturday night they knew almost nothing about him, other than the color of his clothing. They said in the news conference that they were working to find video footage to help identify him.

Ansel Edison, an 18-year-old freshman, was on the ground floor of the science library working on an essay about philosopher Immanuel Kant for his moral theories class when he saw police cars pulling up outside with “a legion” of officers in armored vests with guns.

People started running from the engineering building and into the science library. “A panicked student came in and said there had been 20 shots fired,” Edison said.

A security guard had the students move to the second floor. A friend texted Edison that he was barricaded in the engineering building. Other students relayed to Edison what they were hearing on the police scanner.

After a while police started to bang on the door. “I was scared at first because I wasn’t sure if it was a cop or not,” Edison said.

He was texting with his mother, Victoria Edison, during the ordeal. “It’s terrifying,” she said, adding that she was also checking a parents’ Facebook group for updates.

Owen Fick, a junior, was outside on an errand when he saw heavily armed police officers in protective gear running down the street. He said Thayer Street was jammed with police cars and emergency vehicles.

“I really had no idea what was going on, but then it became really apparent,” said Fick, who watched as the armed officers appeared to sweep a building. He added: “There were a lot of ambulances, a lot of cop cars, fire trucks. They just had a lot of gurneys.”

He rushed to a dorm room to shelter in place.

The number of victims Saturday was the highest of any shooting at an American college in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a database of mass shootings.