Tipster hailed for helping authorities identify suspect in Brown shooting | Brown University shooting
Authorities handling the mass shooting at Brown University on Friday hailed a member of the public who came forward with information that would help solve the case and lead to the suspect.
A man hitherto publicly known only as “John” shared key information on the Reddit platform about an encounter with the suspect that caught the attention of investigators, while Reddit users encouraged him to go to police with tips.
According to authorities, the man approached a police officer in Providence, the capital of Rhode Island, where the Ivy League school is located, and said, “I think you’re looking for me.”
He is now expected to be eligible for the $50,000 reward offered by the FBI for information leading to a suspect in the Brown tragedy.
John reported having an unusual encounter with the apparent suspect at college, and said he also saw him acting strangely about a gray Nissan rental car with Florida license plates.
“He was actually critical of this, and everybody in Providence certainly owes a debt of gratitude to that person,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said in an interview with CNN Friday morning.
“He came in and was very forthcoming, gave important details… We had different information and we had strong suspicions that it fit together, but it wasn’t confirmed, and he was able to do that for us, and so that was a really critical turning point,” Smiley said.
The mayor added that John probably had a legitimate fear for his safety after an image of him on surveillance footage was released by authorities, but “this was a person who came forward and came forward for all the right reasons.”
Smiley said the deceased suspect, Claudio Neves Valenté, was not yet known because of the shooting 25 years ago at Brown, where he was briefly a graduate student, and the killing of a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on Thursday.
Investigators believe Valenté is also responsible for the shooting death of MIT professor Nuno FG Loureiro at his home in the Boston suburbs.
John, the tipster, reportedly had no fixed abode and was living in the basement of the engineering building in Brown, where he first encountered Valenté in the bathroom before the mass shooting last Saturday evening. reported.
He then followed Valenté and saw him in the rental car; which ultimately helped investigators track him to Salem, New Hampshire; where Valenté was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Thursday night.
Smiley said the tipster was a Brown graduate. “He was proud of this community and realized: [when he encountered the suspect on campus] Smiley said on CNN that this was someone he had never seen before, which aroused his suspicions.
