PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In the chaotic moments after a gunman barged into Brown University and fatally shot two students and injured nine others, police officers responding to the unfolding tragedy briefly thought they'd captured the killer.
"Yes, the suspect's down in custody," a police dispatcher can be heard in newly released video from the Dec. 13 attack.
Some two minutes later Providence Police Lt. Patrick Potter, whose bodycam video was released Monday, delivered an update.
"We have no suspect yet," Potter is heard saying.
It would be another five days before detectives tracked down gunman Claudio Neves Valente to a storage unit in New Hampshire, where the 48-year-old former Ph.D. candidate was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The bodycam video was an eye-opening look at the frightening aftermath of the Brown campus shooting when police were searching room-by-room for the suspect, trying to comfort and care for terrified students, and trying to coordinate with campus police to get past locked doors.
"I need keys to the building," an officer can be heard saying at one point. "I need somebody from Brown University to get us in here."
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said in a statement the city released the video to comply with requests from news outlets across the U.S. and other countries for body camera video, audio clips and other public records in connection with the shooting.
Smiley said they redacted the most graphic, violent images to avoid harming victims and “maintain the trust we have built in our community.”
“It is incredibly important to me that the city of Providence remains fully transparent, accountable and compliant with the state’s Access to Public Records Act,” Smiley said in the statement. “We also know that the footage and audio we are required to release will likely be harmful and traumatizing for the victims, families and neighbors who are still trying to heal and recover from this incident.”
The newly released material includes audio of a campus police officer calling city police at 4:07 p.m. on the day of the carnage.
“This is Brown police. We have confirmed gunshots at 184 Hope Street,” the officer said. “We do have a victim but we do not know where they are.”
Four minutes later, campus police called back with an update: “We have a suspect description, wearing all black and a ski mask, unknown travel direction.”
Separately, the city released the body camera video of Potter, who was in charge of the initial response to the shooting.
It also shows, among other things, officers trying to find a safe spot to send the students evacuated from the building.
Scattered backpacks, gloves, books, and other items can be seen as officers search the building looking for a possible shooter and his victims.
“Let’s get these rescues in, where are we staging rescue?” an officer, who was not identified, says in the video.
He later cautions other officers, “Shooter might still be in the building, so use caution alright.”
