The shooting at Brown University on Saturday, which killed two people and wounded nine others, was quickly overshadowed by the terror attack at Bondi Beach in Australia.

The circumstances of the attack at Brown University are still being established. It has been reported that the Saturday gathering was a study hall for an economics class by the professor of said class.

Rachel Friedberg, a Brown University economics professor, said Saturday’s mass shooting at the school happened at a review session for the final exam of her Principles of Economics course.

Friedberg said she was not present during the shooting. The session was led by her teaching assistants, she said, one of whom alerted her.

Friedberg then raced to Rhode Island Hospital, where an Ocean State Media reporter spoke with her. Friedberg said she heard the following account from the teaching assistant, who she said was not shot but visited the hospital to support several of their injured students.

“The room has stadium seating with doors that enter at the top,” Friedberg said. “He said that the shooter came in the doors, yelled something — he couldn’t remember what he yelled — and started shooting.”

“Students started to scramble to try to get away from the shooter, trying to get lower down in the stadium seating, and people got shot,” Friedberg said the teaching assistant told her. “I don’t know if they’re the only ones who got shot or not.”

Professor Friedberg’s position at Brown University drew some observant attention.

Rachel Friedberg is Teaching Professor of Economics, Faculty Associate of the Program in Judaic Studies, and Faculty Associate of the Population Studies and Training Center. Friedberg earned her Ph.D. at MIT, joining Brown as an Assistant Professor, and serving for four years on the faculty of the Department of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the economics of immigration, specifically econometric analysis of the outcomes and impacts of immigrants in the United States and Israel, about which she has testified before Congress and participated in Knesset committee deliberations. She is currently exploring the intersection of economics and Jewish studies. Friedberg’s Principles of Economics course is the most popular class at Brown, taken by half of all undergraduates.

However, we still don’t know if that particular point of information is even relevant, because we have no motive, no weapon, and NO SUSPECT. On Sunday, police in Rhode Island announced that a “person of interest” had been identified, and media quickly gained a name and began investigating this person’s background. But by Sunday evening, authorities announced that the “person of interest” was being released.

A 24-year-old man who authorities apprehended in connection with the Brown University mass shooting was released from custody and the real gunman is still at large, authorities announced during a surprise press conference late Sunday night.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha explained that it was “difficult” to develop evidence and track down leads in the immediate aftermath of the shooting Saturday, in which two students were killed and another nine injured.

“This is what these investigations look like. Sometimes you head in one direction, sometimes you regroup and go in another,” Neronha said.

One of the leads they developed led them to (Benjamin) Erickson, who authorities only referred to as a “person of interest.” Neronha said that there was only “some degree of evidence” that led them to Erickson, but said their investigation “now points in a different direction.”

“I think it’s fair to say that there’s no basis to consider him a person of interest, and that’s why he’s being released. We still have a lot of steps to take in this case,” he added.

The gunman, who has yet to be identified, burst into an economics class’ final review session and opened fire. He was armed with a handgun and shot off more than 40 .9mm rounds before fleeing the scene.

Another massive problem for authorities is that despite Brown University being an Ivy League school, did not have useable security cameras in the building!

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha had a tense exchange with reporters on Sunday when one questioned why there weren’t enough cameras at Brown University to catch the gunman still at large.

“There just weren’t a lot of cameras in that Brown building, is the reality,” Neronha said.

“The reality is it’s an old building attached to a new one,” he added. “I don’t know what to tell you, but we’re going to go out and find whatever evidence we can to solve this case as quickly as we can.”

“I mean, we’re not holding back a video that we think would be useful. And I don’t think I should even have to say it.”

This means that the only camera footage that the police have is one that doesn’t show the suspect’s face.

This is the only footage they have of the suspect in the brown university shooting pic.twitter.com/ofiq9MLV5w

— Global Report (@Globalrepport) December 15, 2025

Brown University, for its part, is telling the community to stay calm because there is no “immediate threat.”

Providence police announced late on Sunday night that they have released the individual they had detained in connection with the investigation into the shooting on the Brown campus on Saturday, Dec. 14, which claimed the lives of two Brown students and injured nine others. The Rhode Island Attorney General stated definitively in a news media event hosted by the City of Providence that “there is no basis” to consider the released individual a person of interest.

Law enforcement agencies continue to investigate, and local police have advised they do not believe there is any immediate threat to Brown or the local community.

As Providence police continue to lead this investigation, they have informed Brown that they are continuing their search efforts, which includes ongoing coordination with multiple agencies. There continues to be a heightened amount of local, state and federal police activity in the area as law enforcement continues to investigate and patrol with increased vigilance. The Department of Public Safety has more than doubled its staffing.

That is not exactly reassuring, seeing as now there is no person of interest, no possible suspect, no known motive, and two dead students, one of whom was just identified as the vice president of the college’s Republican club, Ella Cook.

RIP Ella Cook.

May God be close to her family.

Just terrible. 🙏🙏 https://t.co/YzXeIFV8Dd

— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) December 15, 2025

But never fear, the Democrats know what will solve everything. More gun control! At least, that’s what Joe Biden says.

Students should have the freedom to learn in school without having to fear for their lives. Period. We must never accept senseless violence that leaves families and communities shattered. It pierces the very soul of our nation. We can and must do more to prevent gun violence and…

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) December 14, 2025

Seeing as what we know about this shooting could fit on one of old Joe’s infamous cue cards, it’s a rather large leap to assume that more laws would have kept this crime from happening, especially in Rhode Island, which has extremely restrictive gun laws. And then there was Senator Chris Murphy, who just wants to blame Donald Trump for everything, without knowing anything.

Murphy joined CNN anchor Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” where he claimed that the uptick in violence was the direct result of a president “engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country.”

“It’s not shocking, because over the last year, President Trump has been engaged in a dizzying campaign to increase violence in this country,” Murphy began, clearly insinuating that the Trump administration was encouraging violence.

“He’s restoring gun rights to felons and to people who have lost their ability to buy guns, he eliminated the White House Office of Gun Violence Protection, and he has stopped funding mental health grants and community anti-gun violence grants that Republicans and Democrats supported in that 2022 bill,” Murphy continued.

“He has been engaged in a pretty deliberate campaign to try to make violence more likely, and I think you’re unfortunately going to see the results of that on the streets of America,” Murphy said.

Bash pressed him on his assertion, saying, “That’s a pretty big statement, he’s in a campaign to make violence more likely?”

“Of course! I mean, he’s knowingly restoring gun rights to dangerous people. He is cutting off grants that have bipartisan support to try to interrupt violence in our cities, or to try to get necessary mental health resources to families and children in need,” Murphy claimed. “The evidence tells you that when you stop funding mental health, when you stop funding community anti-gun violence programs, when you give gun rights back to dangerous people, you are going to have increase in violence. That is knowable and that is foreseeable.”

The only thing knowable is that Chris Murphy really wants to run for president. With no suspect, you can’t establish motive, which means projection like this reflects Chris Murphy’s Trump Derangement Syndrome, not actual facts. And the bottom line is, the authorities have nothing. Brown University has nothing. Neither of them can properly reassure their student body, faculty, or the surrounding community that whoever murdered two people and wounded nine others won’t do it again.

This is a very dangerous and uncertain situation, and is going to require some hard work on the part of law enforcement to actually find the murderer, and regain the trust of everyone affected by this shooting at Brown University.

Featured image: Brown University’s Barus and Holly Building, where the shooting took place, via Kenneth C. Zirkel on Wikimedia Commons, cropped, CC BY-SA 4.0