Investigators seek older video that might show the Brown campus shooter days before the attack

With the search for the Brown University shooter in its fifth day Wednesday, authorities were asking the public to review any security or phone footage from the week before the attack in the hopes it might help investigators identify the person, believing the attacker may have cased the scene ahead of time.

The request Tuesday came after authorities released several videos from the hours and minutes before and after Saturday's attack showing the person they're seeking standing, walking and even running along streets just off campus, but always with a mask on or their head turned.

“I believe that this is probably the most intense investigation going on right now in this nation” Providence’s police chief, Col. Oscar Perez, said at a Wednesday news conference, noting that investigators have collected a lot of crime scene evidence and that student witnesses' accounts of the shooter match the person in the video that authorities are seeking.

While Brown has installed 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack, which killed two students and wounded nine others, happened in a first-floor classroom in an older part of the engineering building that has “fewer, if any” cameras, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha noted. Investigators also believe the shooter entered and left the building through a door that faces a residential street bordering campus. The building being right on the edge of campus also might explain why the cameras Brown does have didn't capture footage of the person.

Yet lingering frustration about the lack of campus video of the shooter led President Donald Trump to accuse the Ivy League school of being unprepared, posting Wednesday on Truth Social: “Why did Brown University have so few Security Cameras? There can be no excuse for that. In the modern age, it just doesn’t get worse!!!”

Investigators have described the person they're seeking as about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and stocky, but they've given no indication that they are close to zeroing in on their identity.

Motive also remain a mystery, though Perez said investigators haven’t found evidence to suggest someone was targeted.

Authorities have been canvassing nearby neighborhoods and have received hundreds of tips.

Providence police on Wednesday released a new photo of a separate individual who they said was in “proximity of the person of interest” and asked the public to help identify that person.

Felipe Rodriguez, a retired New York Police Department detective sergeant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said it is very rare for authorities to make this kind of plea during a criminal investigation.

“They are grasping at straws,” he said.

Neronha said it wouldn’t help the investigation to release video of fleeing students and other footage from the attack.

Perez declined to say how many witnesses police had spoken to or how many people were in the classroom during the attack. He said his department is hoping more students with information will come forward.

But many students have already gone home. After the shooting, the remaining classes and exams before winter break were canceled.

Meanwhile, Boston-area police are searching for the person who killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor earlier this week. That professor was attacked at home, and the FBI said it had no reason to think the two attacks were linked.

Brown said early-decision admission offers that were delayed after the shooting will be released Wednesday evening.

The attack and shooter’s escape have raised questions about campus security.

Paxson said Brown has two security systems. One, which is activated in times of emergency, sent out text messages, phone calls and emails that reached 20,000 people. The other features three sirens across the campus and was not activated Saturday, a decision Paxson defended because doing so would have caused people to rush into buildings, including the one where the shooting was happening.

“So that is not a system we would ever use in the case of an active shooter,” she said.

Brown's website says the sirens can be used when there is an active shooter, but Paxson said it “depends on the circumstances" and the location of the shooter.

With the shooter still at-large, Providence remained tense Wednesday as additional police were stationed at city schools to reassure worried parents that their kids would be safe. Some schools canceled afterschool activities and field trips.

Prior to the shooting, nearly 1,600 Providence residents were registered to receive texts through a city text alert service. According to the city, 760 new accounts have been created since Sunday, bringing the total number of people registered to receive texts to more than 2,300 as of late Tuesday.

Brown also cautioned people to refrain from accusing people online of having any link to the attack, after it said such speculation led to a student being doxed — their identifying information was posted.

“Accusations, speculation and conspiracies we’re seeing on social media and in some news reports are irresponsible, harmful, and in some cases dangerous for the safety of individuals in our community,” the school said in a statement.

And the police chief on Wednesday asked the public to stop circulating AI-generated images being shared on social media.

About 200 people gathered at a campus church service Tuesday to honor the victims, including Ella Cook and MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, the two students who died.

Cook was a 19-year-old sophomore from Alabama who was very involved in her church and served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans.

Umurzokov was an 18-year-old freshman from Virginia whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Uzbekistan and who hoped to go to medical school one day.

Mayor Brett Smiley said Wednesday that a third wounded student had been discharged, leaving five still hospitalized in stable condition and one in critical condition.

Contributing were Associated Press journalists Jennifer McDermott, Matt O'Brien and Robert F. Bukaty in Providence; Brian Slodysko in Washington; Michael Casey in Boston; Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu.