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A fresh, enhanced surveillance video released by Providence police this week shows a figure investigators are calling a person of interest in the deadly shooting at Brown University, and authorities are once again begging the public for tips and footage. The short clip, shared as part of a renewed canvass of the East Side neighborhood, captures a darkly clad individual walking near the engineering building just before the attack, and officials say any lead could be crucial. Law‑abiding citizens who live and work around campus deserve answers — and the sooner the public helps, the sooner justice can be served.
The shooting on December 13 at Brown’s Barus and Holley engineering building left two students dead and nine others wounded, shattering the calm of Providence and the lives of grieving families. Among the victims were bright young scholars whose futures were stolen in a moment of senseless violence, and an already shaken campus has canceled exams and scrambled to tend to survivors. This isn’t an abstract tragedy — it’s a gutting reality for parents and students who trusted institutions to keep their children safe.
Compounding the community’s pain was the bungled handling of an early lead: authorities detained a person of interest only to release him hours later, a reversal that fueled confusion and anger. Critics have rightly blasted the public spectacle around that detention — including premature boasts from federal officials — because leaking names and celebrating unproven arrests does real harm to people and to investigations. If law enforcement wants the public’s cooperation, it must act with restraint and professionalism, not performative pronouncements.
Now officials have doubled down on evidence gathering, circulating enhanced photos and a new clip that shows the subject in dark clothing, a hat, and a crossbody bag — the kind of small details that can make or break a case. The FBI has offered a reward and set up digital intake portals for tips as investigators tap cellphone analysis teams and canvass the neighborhood for additional cameras and license‑plate information. Americans should be grateful for relentless police work, but they should also demand clear, accurate communication from every agency on the job.
Let’s be blunt: Brown’s administrators and local officials need to answer hard questions about campus security and preparedness, because students were sitting in exams when a gunman walked into a classroom. Reports that there were few cameras in parts of the building and that officials scrambled to notify families expose the consequences of priorities that too often put optics and politics ahead of safety. Colleges ought to be sanctuaries for learning, not proving grounds for the failures of soft‑on‑crime policies.
The broader lesson here is about competence and credibility. When federal officials race to social media to trumpet arrests that don’t hold up, it erodes trust and helps nobody — least of all victims and investigators trying to follow the facts. Conservative patriots should insist on two things at once: vigorous, aggressive law enforcement that hunts down killers, and steady, responsible public communication that protects innocent people and preserves investigative integrity.
Hardworking Americans owe it to the victims and their families to stay engaged and to demand both results and accountability. If you were in the area, if you run a business with a camera, or if you saw anything unusual on December 13, now is the time to step forward and give investigators what they need to close this case. The manhunt must end not with headlines but with justice — and the people of Providence deserve nothing less.
