As of Wednesday morning, it will have been four days since a shooting at Brown University claimed two lives. Not only do we seem no closer to answers, but the behavior of those who are supposed to be in charge of getting those answers seems to be getting stranger and stranger by the hour.
We know who the victims are, and we know that the parents of one of them — a prominent member of the Rhode Island Ivy’s College Republicans chapter, 19-year-old Ella Cook — have been told that their daughter was targeted. We do not know why.
We have heard the shooter yelled something. We have not been told what, although we’ve heard reasonable reports that would make sense in the context of the killings.
We were told there was a person of interest and that the people of Providence could stop sheltering in place. We were then told that the person of interest was no longer interesting to authorities, although there was no threat to the people of the city despite a shooter being on the loose.
And now, we have Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha and Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez evading questions and generally making a bizarre mockery out of the forward-facing end of the manhunt for the shooter.
Police were now searching for a new person of interest, they announced Tuesday, although the grainy footage of the individual being sought was not of much help:
#BREAKING: The FBI, in coordination with the @ProvidenceRIPD and @RIStatePolice, is releasing a new image of a person of interest in the mass shooting at Brown University on 12/13/25. The #FBI is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the identification,… pic.twitter.com/wOKSR6Qr6q
— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) December 16, 2025
🚨1/4 We are requesting the public’s assistance in identifying a person of interest in Saturday’s incident at Brown University. Please share these video clips and direct all tips to 401-272-3121 or https://t.co/8a1yEMYJya pic.twitter.com/D63mcbnq8J
— Providence Police (@ProvidenceRIPD) December 15, 2025
“The way the person moved their arms, the body posture, the way they walk, they carry their weight,” Perez said Tuesday, according to NBC News.
“I think those are the important movements, patterns, that may help you identify this individual, which is extremely important.”
Apparently, less important was getting where the video was taken right, which Perez did not. During one media briefing, he identified the footage as being taken inside:
🚨 Holy shit…
DEI Providence Police Chief gets corrected AGAIN during today’s presser!
He claims the key suspect video we all saw was captured inside the building…
Then the AG jumps in: “No, Chief — it was from outside.”
This investigation is a total clown show. pic.twitter.com/zfYbAQRXpS
— Alec Lace (@AlecLace) December 16, 2025
Again, if this was the only suspect communication we had gotten from authorities, fine. But it wasn’t, unsurprisingly. There was also Attorney General Neronha, whose behavior about whether a certain individual being scrubbed from school websites was any indication of a direction in the investigation was odd:
What an odd response from Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
He wasn’t actually asked a question—after taking a few minutes to think, he stepped up to the podium to respond to an earlier question about the Brown University taking down some webpages. That question was… pic.twitter.com/3OTpsgPHEf
— Laura Powell (@LauraPowellEsq) December 17, 2025
This is in response to people noticing that Brown scrubbed all mentions of a pro-Palestine, pro-wokeness individual with pronouns in bio whose figure happens to resemble the portliness of the alleged shooter. The question, it’s worth noting, was directed at the university president.
But people involved with the investigation seem to be loath to allow reporters to even ask whether the individual being deleted from the website figures into this. They also don’t want to answer whether the shooter yelled out “Allahu Akbar” before the murders, as some have alleged:
The DEI hire police Chief in Rhode Island
Oscar L. Perez (who did half of his press conference yesterday in Spanish) is deliberately covering up what I was first to report the day of the Brown University @BrownUniversity shooting.The shooter is a Muslim with ties to the… https://t.co/hYSEuA7gPl pic.twitter.com/NmS5HLwLpO
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) December 16, 2025
If the authorities know what the shooter yelled and they aren’t saying it, they’re hindering the investigation. Unless, of course, they don’t consider it in their best interests to aid the investigation.
That’s a galling thought, but it’s also not an unreasonable one. If the individual in question has been ruled out as a suspect, say it. If he’s a person of interest, say it. If the suspect yelled something, say what it was. If you don’t have any idea what it was, say you have no idea.
But, no: Either these people are comically inept or they’re inept on purpose, because answering those questions makes their political enemies outside of deep, dark blue Providence look more sensible. Whichever it is, it should be grounds for summary dismissal.
What does it say, though, when one thinks inadvertent ineptitude is preferable to purposeful ineptitude? Or, worse, when one gets the feeling inadvertent ineptitude is definitely less likely, from all we’ve seen over the past few days?
And, thanks to wokeness, these are questions that must be asked. These people — from law enforcement to university officials — would have a lot more latitude to make mistakes if they hadn’t destroyed every once of trust we had given them over literal centuries. They’ve made their beds. Now they have to sleep in them, and that means everyone thinks they’re lying.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
