Law enforcement vehicles block campus on Brook Street, Rhode Island, US, December 13, 2025. (Photo: REUTERS/Taylor Coester)

The Providence university remained in lockdown hours after a suspect with a firearm entered a building where students were taking exams. The gunman escaped after shooting students in a classroom in Brown's Barus & Holley engineering building.

Officials released a video of the suspect, a male possibly in his 30s and dressed in black.

All or nearly all of the victims were students, Brown President Christina Paxson told reporters.

Brown, located on College Hill in Rhode Island's state capital, has hundreds of buildings, including lecture halls, laboratories, and dormitories. The shooting suspect is thought to have fled, according to local officials, along a normally bustling street of restaurants and coffee shops.