Police search rental car linked to Brown University gunman and killer of MIT nuclear scientist
Police have narrowed their search for the fugitive Brown University gunman to rural Salem.
Sources say detectives are probing links from the mass shooting to the killing of a nuclear professor days later.
Investigators are still searching for a suspect in the Brown University shooting and a car that the person is believed to have rented.
Authorities believe the rented vehicle, a silver Nissan, is the same make and model of a car that was detected close to MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, who was shot at his home in the Boston suburbs two days later, according to CBS.
The suspect is believed to be in his 40s.
Panic spread in Salem as news helicopters and police patrols searched for the desperate gunman.
The man identified by police as ‘in proximity’ to the unidentified Brown University shooting suspect has been found and interviewed by law enforcement. According to local reports, he told police he confronted the gunman before the shooting and questioned what he was doing there.
The gunman at Brown on Saturday went on to kill two students and wounded nine others in a classroom in the school’s engineering building before getting away.
Ella Cook, 19, was the vice president of the Ivy League university’s Republican club, and a ‘leading Republican voice at Brown’.
Also shot dead was Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an aspiring neurosurgeon from Uzbekistan, who was described by his family as ‘the most kind-hearted person’.
A clear image of the gunman, who left nine others injured at the prestigious university in Providence, has not been released.
‘He made sure I had my stuff done. He made sure he had his stuff done. He was just always there. He’d come in there and cheer me up.’
Speaking to CBS News, Mukhammad’s roommate Khimari Manns described the student as ‘Just a ball of joy, ball of energy’, adding: ‘He raises everybody else to a certain level.’
Who is Nuno Loureiro?
About 50 miles north of Brown University, MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was gunned down in his home Monday night in the Boston suburb of Brookline. The 47-year-old fusion scientist died at a hospital the next day.
Loureiro, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Centre, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research.
The centre, one of MIT’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.
He grew up in Viseu, in central Portugal, and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT.
He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, the university said.
‘He shone a bright light as a mentor, friend, teacher, colleague and leader, and was universally admired for his articulate, compassionate manner,’ Dennis Whyte, an engineering professor who previously led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Centre, told a campus publication.
Loureiro had said he hoped his work would shape the future.
‘It’s not hyperbole to say MIT is where you go to find solutions to humanity’s biggest problems,’ Loureiro said when he was named to lead the plasma science lab last year. ‘Fusion energy will change the course of human history.’
Brown University fugitive has been on the run for nearly a week
Frustration is mounting in Providence that the person behind the attack managed to get away and that a clear image of their face has yet to emerge.
‘There’s no discouragement among people who understand that not every case can be solved quickly,’ the state attorney general, Peter Neronha, said at a news conference.
Authorities have scoured the area for evidence and pleaded with the public to check any phone or security footage they might have from the week before the attack, believing the shooter might have cased the scene ahead of time.
Investigators have released several videos from the hours and minutes before and after the shooting that show a person who, according to police, matches witnesses’ description of the shooter.
In the clips, the person is standing, walking and even running along streets just off campus, but always with a mask on or their head turned.
The person of interest appeared to suddenly stop and turn around as he approached the corner.
‘I want to urge you, the public, not to rely on AI generated images that are currently being shared on social media,’ Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez warned at a news conference.
‘The updates and information you’re getting will be provided exclusively through this department’s social channels.’