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Two Students Killed, Nine Injured In Brown University Shooting; Police: Video Shows Shooting Suspect Walking Down Street. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired December 13, 2025 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:37]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Good evening. I'm Jim Sciutto, live in Washington, D.C.

We begin with sad but familiar breaking news out of Providence, Rhode Island. Officials now say at least two students were killed. Nine people injured in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Authorities are still searching for the suspect hours later -- the suspect, who opened fire during final exams just this afternoon. Police describing the suspect as a male dressed all in black

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY CHIEF TIM O'HARA, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND POLICE: Preliminarily, all we have is a suspect that was a male dressed in black. It is unknown how he entered the building, but we do know that he exited the hope street side of that complex. It's -- we're utilizing every resource possible to find this suspect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: And yet all these hours later, a lockdown order remains in place for the surrounding community. The school says the shooting happened at an engineering and physics building where multiple exams were taking place. One student tells CNN she was studying in that building, and then she heard five or six shots.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BRETT SMILEY (D), PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND: We are encouraging anyone who was a witness to today's action to please contact the police as the investigation is ongoing and they may have critical information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was in the front area, and I heard multiple gunshots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Well, video shows students evacuating once authorities and first responders arrived. President Trump said he's been briefed. There's that video. Now, as the students have to go through what is, well, such a familiar American experience. And that is responding to an active shooter.

President Trump, as I mentioned, said he had been briefed. Federal law enforcement agencies, including the Secret Service, the FBI and ATF, are now assisting local law enforcement in their response, some 400 officers were told now involved in the ongoing manhunt.

The mayor is asking the public for any help they can offer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMILEY: We are encouraging anyone who was a witness to today's action to please contact the police as the investigation is ongoing and they may have critical information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: As we said, this is crucial. There is still a lockdown in effect and the shooter is still at large.

We're going to go to Providence, Rhode Island now. We're joined by Lynne Sullivan. She's the regional executive editor of "The Providence Journal", which has been covering this throughout the evening.

Lynne, listen, first, my heart goes out to your community because this is something so many American communities have gone through. And the sad fact is the community is still going through it right now with the shooter still at large. What do we know and how far does that lockdown area extend at this point?

LYNNE M. SULLIVAN, REGIONAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR, PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: Well, it's one interesting thing about Brown University. I think when people think of a college, they may think of it a campus that's sort of surrounded by a gate or something like that. And, you know, Brown does have like a quad and -- but Brown is also very spread out among an area with a lot of residential homes, businesses, the students, many of the students live off campus. Rhode Island School of Design is right there as well.

So, this is a large area. It's a lot of people under lockdown. As we just learned, the Buffalo Bills are still in lockdown in their hotel. They -- the opposing team of the Patriots typically stays in Providence the night before game. So there many restaurants sort of shut down early for the evening. One play that was going on in Christmas play was going on and, and that led out early. It's been disruptive to the city for sure.

And it's a little scary because, yes, this is a school shooting, but maybe in a different way than some other school shootings, this sort of involved the whole, you know, area, the whole community, the whole neighborhood in that area.

SCIUTTO: I mean, the issue with a campus like that, I imagine, is its porous, right? So, there would be a lot of ways for the shooter to exit the scene.

[22:05:04]

Now, to what degree are police sharing how much they know whether they have any leads on the identity, potential identity of the shooter or what, even what direction the shooter took after he left the site of the shooting by that engineering building

SULLIVAN: Yeah. So, they know which direction he went. But again, it's difficult. It's nighttime. There's a lot of people in the city right now, just because there's holiday events and things like that happening as well. And I think nowadays, we find the police are pretty close lipped when it comes to things. You have the sense that they know, but they don't want to sort of tip their hand a little bit.

So, but I do know too, because this isn't a contained area. There are a number of, of businesses and private homes that have cameras. And so I'm sure that they're trying to go through footage and see if what they can see.

SCIUTTO: Listen, the lockdown is understandable because the shooter is still at large, still a fluid situation as authorities continue to say. But I wonder, is there any guidance as to how long they can continue the lockdown? Right? Because, I mean, it could take some time to find the shooter, depending on what stage of the investigation they're at.

SULLIVAN: Exactly. I think when you think of a more contained college campus, it would be easier to keep them under lockdown. But you're right, keeping, you know, an entire city, neighborhood, under lockdown would be tricky, for sure.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, well, listen, Lynne, it's --

SULLIVAN: Reminiscent for us. For us in the newsroom, it's reminiscent of the marathon bombing right now.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

SULLIVAN: You know, that was so close for us. But --

SCIUTTO: You're right. And listen, I mean, the one parallel right is early on. Did they have a suspect? Did they know who the suspect was? And there were a lot of confusing signals sent at the time.

Lynne Sullivan --

SULLIVAN: Exactly, yeah, we appreciate the work you and your team are doing there as you continue to cover this story.

We want to go to the White House now. My colleague Julia Benbrook has been standing by.

And, Julia, early on, the president said that he had been briefed and shared updates in progress and then updated those updates because initially he shared information that the suspect was in custody, which had been coming from -- from campus authorities, but then had to correct that to say, actually, no, the suspect is not in custody. Is the White House sharing any more, any more information tonight?

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim, and it just really kind of illustrates the confusion that has gone on throughout this evening. We saw back-to-back social media posts. So, President Donald Trump posted, he confirmed that there was a shooting that the FBI would be helping on the ground. He also said at that time that there was a suspect in custody. That was followed up quickly after with another social media post retracting that part of it. He said that university police had also retracted that there was a suspect in custody, and we did get a bit of a clarification on that during one of the press conferences this evening, local officials said that there was someone they thought was involved at the time that did not turn out to be the case.

When Trump arrived back here at the White House this evening, he did speak with reporters. His comments were brief. He only commented on the shooting. He said that he was thinking of and praying for the victims and their family members. We know at this point that two people were killed and nine others wounded.

But this confusion, this chaos continues on. The Rhode Island governor spoke earlier. He said that he's in contact with several other leaders, including some here in the Trump administration. He actually had a phone call just a little while ago with the president himself. The governor said that he expressed a sense of urgency and offers to help. He also said that he has been in contact and is receiving direct help from FBI Director Kash Patel.

Patel put out a statement. I want to read you part of it, he said, quote, "FBI personnel are on the scene and assisting this evening after the shooting at Brown University, and we will provide all capabilities necessary. Please pray for all of those involved." He also promised to keep the updates coming as there are updates available, but still a lot of questions here tonight -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, and of course, just two families dealing with the awful news of having lost loved ones this evening.

Julia Benbrook at the White House, thanks so much.

Joining me now is a student at Brown who is still among those under lockdown as the community is under lockdown. Ethan Schenker joins me now.

Ethan, thanks so much for joining.

First, I got to ask you, how are you doing? It has to be enormously stressful to knowing that the shooter is still at large, and you still have to remain under lockdown.

[22:10:03]

ETHAN SCHENKER, BROWN UNIVERSITY STUDENT, PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND (via telephone): Hi, Jim, thanks for having me. I'm here right now in a library where I've been on lockdown for almost

six hours now with a lot of other students who are here studying for finals. And were kind of in line waiting to evacuate. It seems that people don't really know what's going on. I think everything has been very fluid, especially with the identification of a suspect in custody and that walking that back. So, I think everyone's just really on edge right now.

SCIUTTO: Oh, I'm sure and I'm sorry. Listen, I'm sorry you have to go through this with your friends there.

Have authorities -- have university officials given you any sense of how much longer you'll be on lockdown? Or are they saying perhaps this continues until the suspect is caught?

SCHENKER: Yeah, we're not sure. We've been getting kind of periodic updates from Brown through email by text, but it's gotten less and less frequent as time has elapsed since the shooting. But, you know, given by the fact that we're kind of all waiting to be evacuated, not quite sure to where this seems like something that isn't going to wrap up in either until they find this person or I don't know what else.

SCIUTTO: I don't -- you know, I hesitate to ask you to relive those moments when this first took place, but can you tell us where you were and how you first found out that a shooting had taken place?

SCHENKER: Well, I was in the basement of the library studying for finals with some friends, and I got at about 4:15. I got a text from a friend saying their mom saw something on Facebook, and I looked it up on Twitter. I saw and kind of two minutes later, I got a text from Brown saying to go on lockdown. And lock the doors, stay away from windows, all of those things.

And I immediately just called my parents and my brother to make sure to let them know that I was okay, and to make sure my friends were okay. And it just was a little bit it didn't kind of seem real. I think that's what a lot of people experienced, and that's what I did.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure. Listen, I've heard this from so many folks who've gone through things like this. They -- we know that these shootings happen, and we always imagine they'll happen at a distance. Right. So, it's just the stress you must be going through, having, having gone through it firsthand.

You were also there, I remember when we were first in touch a little earlier, as authorities were going through the building you're in, I imagine, trying to clear it to establish that the shooter was not there.

SCHENKER: Yeah. So, after about two hours on, on lockdown, I believe we kind of heard loud sides. You know, everyone was very on edge. It was kind of startling to all of us. And we kind of realized this was police banging on doors, with every classroom.

I saw people with ATF, Providence police, Brown police, kind of all these different agencies just going through clearing, asking students to put their hands up if they were in there. And the building the library was in -- was, you know, like a 5 or 10 minute walk from where the shooting took place. But, you know, police are still trying to clear and get everyone in one space.

And that's where we've kind of been since then. We were moved out after police cleared the basement area we were in.

SCIUTTO: Well, that had to be a tough moment, too, because I imagine, you know, you want to be confident that the people banging on the door, right, are law enforcement, right? I mean, did you -- were you -- were you afraid in the moment that perhaps, perhaps the threat wasn't gone?

SCHENKER: Yeah. There was -- there was like whenever anyone went in a room or opened the door, since we were kind of outside these doors as this was happening, you know, we were kind of discussing. Do you ask police to their like ID number, you know, how do you approach this? I mean, we didn't really know.

There are some students here, who I thought as it is, they're international students. They didn't grow up doing drills and lockdown drills. And so, it's -- these were kind of discussions we were all having as we just sat and waited and hoped they'd find this person.

SCIUTTO: Well, Ethan, you're of a generation that grew up with events like this as a -- as a reality. And listen, I'm glad you're safe. Please stay safe. And I hope you get some. I hope you get some relief soon. I hope the lockdown is lifted soon.

[22:15:00]

SCHENKER: Thank you so much.

SCIUTTO: Speaking to Ethan Schenker there, student at Brown still under lockdown.

Joining me now is CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller, who's been covering this from the beginning.

And, John, as always, you're in touch with your law enforcement contacts. Do you have any sense at this point? What leads they have in terms of identifying and finding the shooter

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, the leads that were going to get them there the quickest are the ones that are not materializing. And I want to reflect back on something that Chuck Ramsey, the former police chief of Washington, police commissioner of Philadelphia, said earlier tonight, which is this was not something that wasn't planned.

This is not an individual who spontaneously threw some fit of anger and started to open fire on students. This is someone who plotted this in advance. And deliberately dressed in such a way to make his picture difficult to identify himself from.

We have seen this before. Think back to Luigi Mangione. Think back to the Charlie Kirk shooter, who came in, you know, with a hat and glasses and mask and so on. This is another instance where we have somebody who wanted to strike, who wanted to get away, and wanted to do that as, as part of a plan.

So, the idea that they're going to put out this video, even though it will be difficult to identify him, is a first step.

The second piece, Jim, as you know, is they've got to go backwards through that video canvas. Now, most of the buildings in that school, Brown University, have cameras. Most of the cameras are focused by the doors or central hallways.

Where cameras are placed. How many? This is something that students at Brown have a voice in. And have a sensitivity to. They don't want cameras everywhere.

So they're going to go over what they have and try and figure out, can we identify somebody where we can see them, who might be that person who came in in regular clothes and then changed into this outfit in a bathroom, in a locker somewhere else, and then did the shooting and left that way. Or can we find a piece of video where we can see his face or more of it?

SCIUTTO: Well, it's such a -- it's such an important point there, right? That with planning for something like this, someone who would who would make plans to carry out such a horrible act like this, they're aware of the presence of cameras and behave in such a way to avoid identification by those cameras, which seems to be the case here.

Let me ask you this, because these students and you heard me just talking to one there now, they're still under lockdown. And by the way, others in the community remain under lockdown. Is it your expectation that law enforcement will keep this lockdown in place until they have the shooter? Because that, I mean, that could take some time.

MILLER: Well, it could I think that they are caught in a very difficult position and they're trying to -- they're trying to create this balance between prevention, and being reasonably careful, even though they do not know where he is.

So, look at it from this angle. Nighttime is his friend. You know, he is hard to describe. Nobody knows quite what they're looking for. He's dressed in dark clothing. It's dark out. It's a big campus.

He could still be wandering somewhere in this mix or hiding somewhere. So, you don't want to let everybody out. And then have them confront a gunman who's not in custody.

I would imagine with the coming of daylight and Sunday, they will have to make a decision to modify that. But I think for tonight, you're probably going to see this shelter in place hold.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. Stressful. Stressful. I mean, as you heard, I'm talking to a student who is still in the library, right where he went to study, study earlier, earlier in the day you know, sad fact, John, of course, you and I have talked many times about shootings.

In the most recent one, you and I were speaking about was the national guard shooting here in D.C. and I remember asking you, D.C. is particularly the area around the White House where that shooting took place is just spider web of cameras, right? Deliberately, you know, for security reasons, just as it is in New York, particularly post 9/11.

Would we expect -- it's a campus, as you mention. So, there are privacy concerns students would have, but it's also a city and it's a porous campus in that city. Would we expect that police could piece together the various cameras, private, public, et cetera, to track someone like this? Or would you expect there'd be holes?

MILLER: No, I think that's exactly what they're going to be doing, and they're going to be doing it through the night and through tomorrow and through the next day. I mean, what you do in a situation like this is you look at the camera that did pick him up?

And you ask yourself two questions, which way is he coming from and how do I back -- how do I track backwards to see can I get him on any of the cameras that precede that one to see if we have him in another light, at another angle, in another guise? And the second thing you ask is, and which are the cameras that are on the path that he's taking?

And he exits that building onto Hope Street. And you know, when you come out of that building, you're facing residential houses on one side, there's a garden that you walk through to get to the sidewalk. Residential houses on the other side.

So, they're going to be going to every house and saying, do you have a camera? Do you have a light that comes on when somebody walks by? Is there a camera that looks out from your garage? Ring doorbell camera?

They've asked people to review those, but what they're going to do down the road, meaning tomorrow into the next day, is they're going to say, we'd like to go through that camera. During the times that he was either moving towards or away from this building, because when you and I look at a camera, we may miss something out of the corner of the frame. They're going to want to look at any angle of him that gives them a direction.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. And I imagine --

MILLER: I mean, another thing that they have and they touched on this in the press conference is they have ballistics. They will have bullets that they recover at the scene. They will have bullets that they recovered from victims in the hospital. Wounded individuals, they will have shell casings on the floor. And that means they will be able to do two things.

One, they won't be able to identify the exact weapon in all likelihood, but they will be able to identify the caliber, whether it was a handgun or a rifle. The second thing they'll be able to do, and this is the work of ATF. ATF will run it will run it through the NIBIN system, which will take a look at the striker pin marks and the striations, whether it's the bullet or the shell casing, and they will be able to match that to any other shootings that that weapon might have been involved with.

In crime, things where you've got a criminal or a group of criminals who may be using the same gun, that can be very useful in an active shooter case. It's a little more rare than that. This gun might turn up in a crime. Most of the guns, as you know, Jim, that we see in these active shooter things were purchased legally and owned legally and used legally prior to the act.

SCIUTTO: And sometimes quite close to the act itself. Right? I mean, you have so many cases like that.

And I imagine the public release of these photos when they have them depending on quality will matter because as I remember, for instance, you brought up the Charlie Kirk shooting, as I remember, I think it was a family member who saw some of those incomplete photos and said, wait a second, that looks like my son or grandson. So that that's going to be a key point to get that image out. I imagine.

MILLER: Those sneakers. You know, they recognize they recognize those glasses. Maybe, maybe we'll have something similar here. But the pictures will get eyes on, and the pictures that will follow, which were going to hope are going to be clearer images that might be more identifiable will hopefully keep that going.

SCIUTTO: Well, John Miller, thanks so much for your hope -- for your help. And let's hope that we get some updates soon.

MILLER: And hope.

SCIUTTO: And hope -- yes, exactly.

We will be right back with more of our breaking news coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:27:40]

SCIUTTO: Continuing our breaking news coverage of just an awful story out of Providence, Rhode Island, on the campus of Brown University. More than 400 law enforcement officers remain scouring the area around Brown University as the manhunt continues for the suspect in the deadly shooting on campus. Officials say two people two students were killed, nine others injured. This taking place while students were taking final exams this afternoon.

The suspect is described as a man dressed all in black, still on the run. His weapon has not yet been recovered. Investigators have found shell casings at the scene.

We are learning the Secret Service has joined the ongoing law enforcement operation.

The Providence mayor told my colleague Jessica Dean earlier, the building was easy to get into that night.

(BREGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMILEY: The provost at Brown reported that because there were exams taking place, the doors would have been unlocked. Maybe not every door inside the building, but the exterior doors and they have badge access to the building after hours. But since it was during regular hours and there were exams taking place, the exterior doors were unlocked. And so, based upon what we heard from officials at Brown anybody could have accessed the building at that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Anybody could have accessed the building at that time. Julia Vargas Jones my colleague has been covering this throughout the evening.

And a number of details stand out at this point. First of all, this is enormous law enforcement response, given that the suspect is still on large, some 400 officers. But the ongoing lockdown in the midst of it, you know, I'm speaking to a student, as you heard earlier, who still in the basement of the library, right where he was when this first took place, with no indication that they will lift this lockdown given the suspect still at large.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And I think that's the question in so many people's minds right now, Jim, is how long would this lockdown go for? And as we heard from our analysts earlier, it could go throughout the night as John Miller pointed out, the night is his friend. And as of now, all we have are the description of that suspect is a man wearing all black.

[22:30:00]

Now, authorities did share some more details that are helping piece this together.

We are expecting a video of the suspect walking down the exit on Hope Street. This is at the edge of campus here. It's almost basically going into a residential area. That video should be coming shortly, that shows the suspect walking down that street as he exits the building where this shooting took place.

We know this. The shooting took place inside a classroom. Initially, he wasn't clear in what part of this building was. We also know that there were many finals taking place in that building at that time.

And according to "The New York Times", the shooting began during a final exam review session for principles of economics class that was, what "The New York Times" reported not too long ago. We also know getting a little bit more details on those students. Of those 11 victims, two of the deceased and eight others who are injured or students, that's according to the Brown University president, Christina Paxson, who we heard from in the press conference earlier.

Now, as we -- as you mentioned, as you were speaking to me there, Jim, most of the buildings do require a badge to walk in. Now, that doesn't mean that someone couldn't have opened the door, held the door open for this person as they were walking into the building, especially. And this is something -- is something that we heard from many of the students that have spoken to CNN throughout the day. There were many people studying.

This is finals week. It goes until December 20th. Allegedly, this started yesterday, so people were getting ready for their exams. There were exams taking place there. There's a lot of activity going on on campus despite it being a Saturday.

And I will also say there has been some confusion as we reported this and what we heard from the university initially. And I just want to point you to a statement from the president of Brown University as well.

She explains that initially there was someone who DPS had held into custody nearby campus, and that is why initially we heard that someone that the suspect was in custody, and later they discovered that was not the case. She did say, we know our community wants answers and we will provide them as soon as they can. For now, please know they are all doing what we can to keep our community safe, and that is what were seeing, that that kind of response. Jim, 400-plus law enforcement officers present.

But I will say also, we are still expected. We expecting we heard from the president there from the president of Brown University, that she is expecting yet another update still tonight on this manhunt -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Julia, just to be clear, you said that the two killed were students, I believe that had been made clear earlier in one of the updates. But you're saying eight of the nine injured were students as well? Do I have that right? So 10 students killed or injured in this? Just awful students bearing the brunt again.

Julia Vargas jones, thanks so much.

For more now, I want to bring in CNN's senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, formerly with the Department of Homeland Security, and Dr. Donell Harvin of Georgetown University's emergency and disaster management program.

Good to have you both on.

I might begin with you, if I can, Juliette, just in terms of the police work underway right now, right? I think we can reasonably say a desperate search for a shooter who's carried out this deadly shooting, and they have some information on. But hours later there's still not clear where he is, one, and two, worried enough that they're keeping the campus on lockdown.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. And all of those are. I mean, such a stressful time. Everything is fluid. So, we can only assess from what we know and not what they know. But what we -- what they have not disclosed is, of course, which they may not know is the basic features of who the -- who the killer is. We've got some clothing. The possibility of a mask. There was some

speculation in the 30s, but no race, I mean, not we don't know if he's black or white or Hispanic. And seemingly no pictures that we can get now that we can get a full visual of him, either from inside the classroom or somewhere in the building.

I thought it was interesting that I believe it was the deputy police chief said, look, we have lots of video of what's in the building. We don't have video of who this person, of someone who looks like they might be the killer.

We're about maybe -- I want to say 40 minutes from that last press conference when a video was going to be promised. I don't think it's been released yet.

[22:35:01]

We haven't seen it. If they have acknowledged, though, that that that unless you know him, you would not -- you're not going to be able to identify him. The goal of the release of this video would be family girlfriend or someone close to them would, would say, oh, that that looks exactly like this, the person I know from the back.

SCIUTTO: Which is, you know, and listen, there have been cases where someone recognizes a suspect based on limited information. I mentioned it speaking to John Miller, the shooter in the Charlie Kirk shooting.

Dr. Harvin, I wonder, given you run Georgetown's emergency and disaster management program, how a campus responds to this, to this kind of thing and what they're doing now, right? And obviously, this is a campus response. It's also a law enforcement response.

But for the campus, how do how do they manage something like this and respond to it quickly?

DR. DONELL HARVIN, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY EMERGENCY & DISASTER MANAGEMENT MASTERS PROGRAM: Well, there's two different phases, Jim. There's a response phase and there's a recovery phase. Unfortunately, they're not even in the recovery phase because this actor or actors is still on the loose.

And so, this is a really scary time. I mean, I did some research. Juliette can correct me. I haven't seen -- we haven't seen an incident where you've had a campus shooting with a protracted manhunt like this. I mean, we're talking about were going into our number six now, Jim. I mean, this is really disturbing for many of the students. Completely disruptive for the campus life. But it's a very small, tight knit community there.

So, when we think about the student population, we think about their extended family, the stores, the people who know them, the people they live with. I mean, it's a very small community. And so, you know, the recovery phase, we can't even talk about, Jim. Maybe we can talk about it next week when they catch this person. These folks are, you know, out of the ICU or surgery or wherever they're in in terms of the, the victims. But right now, we're still in full recovery. We're still in full response phase.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. No question. We should, of course, acknowledge we have two families who've gotten just awful news tonight. They've lost their young loved ones and eight other families, or nine, I should say, eight of whom are students that are now rushing to the hospital and hoping for their loved ones to recover.

Juliette, can they keep the community and not just the Brown community, but the broader community? We heard earlier that, for instance, you got football players staying at a hotel there. I mean, this is quite a community that is now under lockdown because the shooter is still at large. Can they -- can law enforcement, and is it the right call to keep the community on lockdown until they have the shooter in custody?

KAYYEM: What we need to know is that there's no right or wrong call while the assailant is still out. I mean, this is the hardest issue. As Dr. Harvin knows, you know, universities are supposed to be open. You have lots of different pieces of a university. You have faculty, you have staff, you have students, you have grad students. You have their families all around the world.

Brown is an interesting university. I -- my -- I'm a parent of an alumni. It has -- it has that sort of quintessential New England feel of courtyards. But then it basically sprawls into the city and into Providence, including this building, which was close to campus, but, you know, surrounded by private areas.

Look, we know European countries have been in lockdown for long periods of time during massive terror attacks. We know Boston marathon lockdown lasted eight, 10, 12 hours and then was released before one of the Tsarnaev brothers was found in Maine after that mass shooting a few years ago, the community was under lockdown for three days. Look at some stage the benefits of the lockdown are outweighed by, I think, the trauma of the lockdown. And I suspect if they don't find him, you know, by noon or late morning tomorrow, they're going to have to start to get this the kids moving, if not already, in terms of at least escorting them back to their rooms and then locking down the dorms.

SCIUTTO: Dr. Harvin, you mentioned the two phases, right? The initial, which is the initial response to the shooting, getting people safe, right? And then the next one is, is recovery. We're not there yet.

But I was reading earlier that there are students on campus here who were survivors of high school shootings, right? And this has become a phenomenon in this country that we have young people who are multiple survivors, right? We've put them through this more than once, which is just alarming to imagine.

Can you describe the beginnings of the second stage, how you handle the trauma of this for a university community?

HARVIN : Well, it's really tough, Jim, because these are finals. I'm going into school, on Monday to administer finals.

[22:40:03]

It's a very tough week for students around the country.

So, in this particular campus, these students were actively engaged in taking finals. And then they're going to send them home to their families. Some students don't -- so if you have international students on campus, they may stay on campus. And so, the university is in full, you know, preparing for recovery mode.

And that requires psychosocial support, pastoral care, making sure there's wraparound services for the victims, the extended victims, which is the entire campus community.

When these things happen, it's not just the individual students and the actual physical victims that are victimized. It's the entire community.

And so this this university, I'm sure, will be really focused on making sure that all the students and this is an extended family, are taking care of those who are going home to their family members, that they send them home with, you know, information on how to look for signs of PTSD, how to, you know, contact someone if they're home during the holidays, if they're having problems. This is just a nightmare.

I do want to go back to the response phase. And I'd love to hear Juliette's comments on this, but everything I've heard so far is a former first responder. As someone that responded to the Sandy Hook school shooting to help with forensics has been really spot on. I am concerned about some of the students still being there on lockdown. The whole idea behind having tactical teams there so that you can create these safe corridors so people can be extracted, and so maybe it's a sprawling campus. I'm not really familiar with that footprint.

And they just feel it's better and a better use of their resources to use law enforcement to go and hunt this perpetrator down rather than extricate potential victims. But I will tell you that some of the things we heard earlier are really spot on. It comes from the playbook of what you should be doing, setting up a family assistance center, getting the help to the victims and their family members, as well as having a rescue task force.

So I think the initial response is really, really good. Diversity has really been in this type of situation. It's really, really unique.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. At this point, it's a fair question. We'll explore that later in the broadcast, which is the possibility of safe corridors establishing safe zones, perhaps even as the as the manhunt continues.

Juliette Kayyem, Dr. Donell Harvin, good to have you both. Thanks so much.

If you're just joining us, the latest, we've heard two students killed, nine people injured, eight of them wounded -- eight of them students in this shooting, a manhunt still underway for the shooter. We'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:47:13]

SCIUTTO: Back now to our breaking news out of Providence, Rhode Island, where a shooting at Brown University has now left two students dead. Nine people injured, eight of them students as well.

Law enforcement officials are expected to release the first video of the suspect at any moment. They say in this video, he is seen walking down a street wearing dark clothing. His face unfortunately not visible.

Witnesses say he may have worn a gray camouflage mask, according to the police. This next video shows the moment law enforcement arrived just after the shooting and helped evacuate students who were in hiding at the time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you hear anything or see anything?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go outside. Come on. Go, go, go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: How often have we seen children like that evacuated from their schools following horrible acts of gun violence? Well, here we are again.

I want to bring in Deborah Schimberg. She's publisher and managing editor of "The Providence Eye".

And, Deborah, this is your community. Community still under lockdown tonight because the shooter is still at large. Tell me. Tell me what you're hearing from members of your community as this takes place

DEBORAH SCHIMBERG, PUBLISHER & MANAGING EDITOR, THE PROVIDENCE EYE: You know, Brown University is so incredibly tight knit and an important part of the east side of Providence that I think there's a lot of fear and there's a lot of concern. Obviously, we've never had anything like this happen before, and I think people are really worried about the impact that, well, not only that, the shooter still at large, but also worried about the kind of impact this is going to have on the city on the east side at Brown University itself, but also the city at large.

This is a very small -- basically a small town, in that we have less than 200,000 people. And so Brown University's impact is significant here.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure. Can you tell us the impact of the ongoing lockdown now? Because it's perfectly understandable. Law enforcement wants the community to be safe while the shooter is still at large. And as we noted just a few moments ago, they will soon release video. The first images we've seen of the shooter to help track this person down.

We understand why they want everyone to be safe.

[22:50:02]

But I wonder how the community is responding to an ongoing lockdown so many hours after the shooting took place?

SCHIMBERG: Well, you know, the community outside of Brown is not on lockdown. That's the university itself. And obviously, it's significant for students, especially given that right now it's exam time. And there's students are under a lot of stress already.

But the rest of the community is not under lockdown. So, I think there's a lot of concern. Who is this shooter? Was it a random act, focused on the university or will, you know, he's obviously heavily armed -- how is he going to use that those arms? And will he be shooting at another random situation?

SCIUTTTO: Yeah. Understood. Well, Deborah, our heart goes out to you and others in the community as you continue to experience this. We appreciate you joining us tonight.

SCHIMBERG: Thank you very much for having us.

SCIUTTO: And we will be back with more of our breaking news coverage right after this

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:55:54]

SCIUTTO: This just in. You are seeing the video which police have released of the man they believe is the suspect in the Brown University shooting. As you see there, and we'll loop it back again. You see him walking? He had been described to have been wearing dark clothing. His face, though, and this, of course, crucial, not visible.

The shooter is still at large. The campus remains on lockdown as a result of that, police do not yet have video of the suspect from inside the building during the shooting. As we noted earlier, this took place in a economics study session inside an engineering building.

This is the most we have right now from authorities as they continue to attempt to locate the suspect.

Thanks so much for watching this hour. I'm Jim Sciutto. We're going to be right back at the top of the hour. Just a few minutes from now, as our breaking coverage continues.