A frantic search for the suspect last weekend Mass shooting at Brown University It ended up at a storage facility in New Hampshire where authorities discovered the man dead inside and then revealed that he was also suspected of killing a man. Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Claudio Nieves Valiente, 48, a former Brown University student and Portuguese citizen, was found dead Thursday night from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Providence Police Chief Col. Oscar Perez said.
Investigators believe he is responsible for shooting two students and wounding nine others in a Brown lecture hall last Saturday, then killing MIT professor Nuno F.J. Loureiro two days later at his home in suburban Boston, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Providence. As far as investigators know, Perez said, Nieves Valiente acted alone.
Nieves Valiente enrolled there as a graduate student studying physics from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001, Brown University President Christina Paxson said.
“He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said.
Nieves Valiente and Loureiro previously attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, said US Attorney in Massachusetts, Leah B. Foley. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at the Polytechnic Institute, Portugal’s leading engineering school, in 2000, according to MIT’s faculty page. In the same year, Nieves Valente was dismissed from his position at the University of Lisbon, according to an archive of a termination notice from the university’s then-president in February 2000.
Nieves Valiente came to Brown on a student visa. Foley said he eventually obtained lawful permanent resident status in September 2017. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from school in 2001 and obtaining his visa in 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.
After officials revealed the identity of the suspect, President Donald Trump suspended the operation Green Card Lottery Program Which allowed Nieves Valiente to remain in the United States.
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said there were still “many unknowns” regarding motives. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students, why this semester,” he said.
The FBI previously said it was not aware of any connection between the shootings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Police credited a person who had several encounters with Nieves Valiente Provide crucial advice Which led the authorities to him.
After police shared a security video of a person of interest, the witness — known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit — identified him and posted his suspicions on the social media forum Reddit. Reddit users urged him to report it to the FBI, and John said he did.
John said he met Nieves Valiente hours earlier in the bathroom of the engineering building where the shooting occurred and noticed he was dressed inappropriately for the weather, according to the affidavit. He again bumped into Nieves Valiente two blocks away and suddenly saw him pull away from the Nissan sedan when he saw John.
“When you break it, you break it,” Neronha said. “And that person led us to the car, which led us to the name.”
His information pointed investigators to a Nissan Sentra with Florida plates. This enabled Providence police to leverage a network of more than 70 street cameras operated throughout the city by surveillance company Flock Safety. These cameras track license plates and other vehicle details.
After leaving Rhode Island, Providence officials said Nieves Valiente affixed a Maine license plate over the license plate of his rental car to help hide his identity.
Investigators found footage of Neves Valiente entering an apartment building near the Lourero Building in a Boston suburb. About an hour later, Nieves Valiente was seen entering a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where he was found dead, Foley said. Neronha said he had a bag and two firearms.
Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, joined MIT in 2016 and was appointed last year to lead the school’s Plasma and Fusion Science Center, one of its largest laboratories. The scientist from Viseu, Portugal, has been working to explain the physics behind astronomical phenomena such as solar flares.
Both Brown students killed During the study session for final exams were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman Muhammed Aziz Umurzukov. Cook was active in her church in Alabama and served as Vice President of the Brown College Republicans. Omarzukov’s family immigrated to the United States from Uzbekistan when he was a child, and he aspired to become a doctor.
As for the wounded, three of them were released and are in stable condition on Thursday, according to officials.
Although Brown officials say there are 1,200 cameras on campus, the attack occurred in the old part of the engineering building that has few, if any, cameras. Investigators believe the shooter entered and exited through a door facing a residential street adjacent to the campus, which may explain why Brown’s cameras did not capture footage of the person.
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Associated Press reporters Mark Sulforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Haley Golden in Seattle, and Matt O’Brien in Providence contributed.