Day Five: Brown University Shooter Still Free as FBI Posts $50K Reward

Five days. The shooter who killed Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov inside a Brown University classroom is still walking free.

The FBI has posted a $50,000 reward. Enhanced video footage shows a stocky figure, about 5'8", wandering the residential streets around campus for hours before opening fire. Police say he was "casing" the area. And then, in footage released yesterday, you can see him emerge from campus moments after the attack and walk right past a police cruiser arriving at the scene.

He just walked away.

What Five Days of Investigation Has Revealed

The timeline is becoming clearer now. Around 10:30 AM Saturday, surveillance cameras in the neighborhood captured the person of interest moving through the area. By 2 PM, he was still there, still walking, still watching. The shooting happened just after 4 PM.

Five and a half hours of reconnaissance. That's not impulsive. That's not random. Police Chief Oscar Perez said it plainly: "We believe he was actually casing out this area to commit the crime."

The weapon was a 9mm handgun, the most common caliber used in violent crime in America. No firearm has been recovered. The shooter is considered armed and dangerous.

And here's what investigators are asking: Does anyone recognize his walk? His posture? That distinctive jacket? They've released enhanced video hoping someone will say, "I know that guy." So far, hundreds of tips have poured in. None have identified him.

The Day They Lost

I wrote on Sunday about the Army veteran from Wisconsin who was detained and then released. At the time, I said this is how the system is supposed to work. Evidence pointed one direction, then another. Due process held.

That's still true. But reports now suggest that early focus on the wrong person may have cost investigators up to a full day. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the detention on social media before the evidence was solid. The ballistics from the crime scene didn't match the guns found in that hotel room. By the time authorities pivoted, the trail was colder.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha didn't mince words about what went wrong: "People who aren't familiar and aren't experienced in investigations got over their skis."

The Camera Problem

President Trump weighed in today, criticizing Brown for having "so few Security Cameras." He's not entirely wrong to raise the question, but he's oversimplifying the answer.

Brown says it has over 1,200 cameras across campus. The problem? The Barus and Holley building where the shooting occurred is old. The older section where the gunman moved through had "fewer, if any" cameras. The shooter entered and exited through what amounts to a blind spot at the edge of campus, where university property meets residential neighborhood.

Lucky? Or did he know exactly where the cameras weren't?

Almost every useful piece of video has come from doorbell cameras and security systems in the surrounding neighborhood. Private citizens filling in the gaps that institutional surveillance missed.

New Search for a Potential Witness

This afternoon, Providence police released images of another person, not a suspect, but someone who was "in proximity" to the person of interest before the shooting. Investigators believe they may have spoken with the shooter. They want to find this person and hear what they know.

Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's the break they need.

Another Press Conference at 4 PM

Officials are holding another briefing this afternoon. I'll update if anything significant emerges.

One victim remains in critical condition. Two have been discharged. Six others are stable but still recovering. Brown's campus is emptying out as students head home for winter break, many of them shaken, some of them angry, all of them wondering how someone walked into their school, killed two of their classmates, and simply vanished.

Five days in, and here's where we are: a grainy figure in dark clothing, a distinctive gait, hundreds of tips, zero arrests. The FBI is confident they'll find him. Former investigators say movement could come "in the next day or two."

I hope they're right. Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov deserve answers. Their families deserve justice. The students still in the hospital deserve to know the person who did this to them is off the streets.

For now, the manhunt continues. I'll be watching.