Brown University shooting leaves students, community frustrated with official response

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The ongoing effort to find a man who walked onto Brown University ’s campus during a busy exam season and shot nearly a dozen students in a crowded lecture hall has raised questions about the school's security systems and the urgency of the investigation itself.

A day after Saturday's mass shooting, officials said a person of interest taken into custody would be released without charges, leaving investigators with little actionable insight from the limited security video they had recovered and scrambling to develop new leads.

Law enforcement officials were still doing the most basic investigative work two days after the shooting that killed two students and wounded nine, canvassing local residences and businesses for security camera footage and looking for physical evidence. That's left students and some Providence residents frustrated at gaps in the university’s security and camera systems that helped allow the shooter to disappear.

“The fact that we’re in such a surveillance state but that wasn’t used correctly at all is just so deeply frustrating,” said Li Ding, a student at the nearby Rhode Island School of Design who dances on a Brown University team.

Ding is among hundreds of students who have signed a petition to increase security at school buildings, saying that officials need to do a better job keeping the campus secure against threats like active shooters.

“I think honestly, the students are doing a more effective job at taking care of each other than the police,” Ding said.

Kristy dosReis, chief public information officer for the Providence Police Department, said that at no point did the investigation stand down even after officials appeared to have a breakthrough in the case, detaining a Wisconsin man who they now believe was not involved.

“The investigation continued as the scenes were still active. Nothing was cleared,” said dosReis.

Police and the FBI on Monday released new video and photographs of a man they believe carried out the attack. The man wore a mask in the footage captured before and after the attack.

FBI Boston Special Agent in Charge Ted Docks said a $50,000 reward was being offered for information that would lead to the identification, arrest and conviction of the shooter.

Docks described the investigation, including documenting the trajectory of bullets at the shooting scene, as “painstaking work.”

“We are asking the public to be patient as we continue to run down every lead so we can give victims, survivors, their families and all of you the answers you deserve,” Docks told reporters.

While Brown University is dotted with cameras, there were few in the Barus and Holley building, home of the engineering school that was targeted.

“Reality is, it’s an old building attached to a new one,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha told reporters about the lack of cameras nearby.

The lack of campus footage left police seeking tips from the public.

Katherine Baima said U.S. marshals came to her door on Monday, seeking footage from a security camera pointing toward the street.

“This is the first time any of us in my building, as far as I know, had heard from anyone," Baima said.

Students said the school’s emergency alert system kept them relatively well-informed about the presence of an active shooter. But they were uncertain what to do during a prolonged campus lockdown.

Chiang-Heng Chien, a 32-year-old doctoral student in engineering, hid under desks and turned off the lights after receiving an alert about the shooting at 4:22 p.m. Saturday in a campus lab.

“While I was hiding in the lab, I heard the police yelling outside but my friends and I were debating whether we should open the door, since at that moment the shooter was believed to be (nearby),” he said in a text.

Law enforcement experts say colleges are often at a disadvantage when responding to threats like an active shooter. Their security officers are typically less trained and paid less than in other law enforcement departments. They also don’t always have close partnerships with better-resourced agencies.

Often, funding for campus police departments is not a top priority, even for schools with ample resources, said Terrance Gainer, a former Illinois law enforcement official who later served as the U.S. Senate’s sergeant-at-arms.

“They just aren’t as flush in law enforcement as you would think. They don’t like a lot of uniformed presence, they don’t like a lot of guns around,” said Gainer, who is now a consultant. “Whether it’s Brown or someone else, a key question is, what type of relationship do they have with the local police department?”

At Utah Valley University, where conservative leader Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a shooter on a school building roof last summer, the undersized campus police department never asked neighboring agencies to assist with security at the outdoor Kirk event that attracted thousands, an Associated Press review found.

Providence has an emergency alert system, but it switched from a mobile app to a web-based system in March. The new system requires someone to register online to receive alerts — something not all residents knew.

Emely Vallee, 35, lives about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from Brown with her two young children. She said she received “absolutely nothing” in alerts. She relied instead on texts from friends and the news.

Vallee had expected to be notified through the city’s 311 app, but hadn’t realized that Mayor Brett Smiley phased out the app in March. Smiley said his administration sent out multiple alerts the day of the shooting using the new 311 system and has continued to send them.

Hailey Souza, 23, finished her shift at a smoothie shop just off-campus minutes before the shooting. Everything seemed normal and quiet, Souza said.

But driving home, she saw a boy bleeding on the sidewalk. “Then everyone started running and screaming,” she said. Souza said she saw a bystander rip off his T-shirt to help.

The shop Souza manages, In The Pink, is a block from the engineering building. One of the shooting victims, Ella Cook, was a regular at the store, Souza said. Cook had come in a few days earlier and said her last final was Saturday.

Souza later learned that police came by the store to tell her co-workers about an active shooter. But Souza never received an emergency alert. “Nothing,” she said.

Wieffering, Tau and Slodysko reported from Washington. McDermott reported from Providence. Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi and Matt O’Brien in Providence and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.

Pedestrians ask FBI agents, on the sidewalk on Cooke St. for updates, in Providence, R.I., two days after a shooting occurred on Brown University's campus, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team search for evidence near the campus of Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Community flowers, notes and mementos are placed in a makeshift memorial display in front of Brown University's Van Wickle gates, in Providence, R.I., two days after a shooting took place on Brown University's campus, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

A community member looks at flowers, notes and mementos in a makeshift memorial display sitting in front of Brown University's Van Wickle gates, in Providence, R.I., two days after a shooting took place on the university's campus, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (Lily Speredelozzi/The Sun Chronicle via AP)

On a recent December day, Mark Latino and a handful of his workers spun sheets of vinyl into tinsel for Christmas tree branches. They worked on a custom-made machine that’s nearly a century old, churning out strands of bright silver tinsel along its 35-foot (10-meter) length.

Latino is the CEO of Lee Display, a Fairfield, California-based company that his great-grandfather founded in 1902. Back then, it specialized in handmade velvet and silk flowers for hats. Now, it's one of the only companies in the United States that still makes artificial Christmas trees, producing around 10,000 each year.

Tariffs shone a twinkling light this year on fake Christmas trees — and the extent to which America depends on other countries for its plastic fir trees.

Prices for fake trees rose 10% to 15% this year due to the new import taxes, according to the American Christmas Tree Association, a trade group. Tree sellers cut their orders and paid higher tariffs for the stock they brought in.

Despite those issues, tree companies say they aren’t likely to shift large-scale production back to the U.S. after decades in Asia. Fake trees are labor-intensive and require holiday lights and other components the U.S. doesn’t make, said Chris Butler, CEO of the National Tree Co., which sells more than 1 million artificial trees each year.

Americans are also very price-sensitive when it comes to holiday décor, Butler said.

“Putting a ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ sticker on the box won’t do any good if it’s twice as expensive,” Butler said. “If it’s 20% more expensive, it won’t sell.”

About 80% of the U.S. residents who put up a Christmas tree this year planned to use a fake one, according to the American Christmas Tree Association. That percentage has been unchanged for at least 15 years.

Mac Harman, the founder and CEO of Balsam Brands, which sells hundreds of thousands of Balsam Hill trees each year, said Americans like to set up their trees on Thanksgiving and leave them up for weeks, which dries out fresh-cut trees. Others prefer fake trees because they’re allergic to the mold spores on real trees, he said.

Americans also like convenience; 80% of the fake trees sold each year have the lights already strung on them, Butler said.

That preference is one reason artificial tree production shifted away from the U.S., first to Thailand in the early 1990s and to China about a decade later. Winding lights around the branches is time-consuming and tedious, Harman said.

“Where are we going to get 15,000 people in America who want to string lights on Christmas trees?” Harman said.

It takes an hour or two to make an artificial Christmas tree, from molding and cutting the needles to tying branches together and attaching the lights, Butler said. Workers in China, where 90% of fake trees are made, are paid $1.50 to $2 per hour, he said.

Harman said the workers who wrap the lights on Balsam Hill's trees are so efficient “it's like watching an Olympian.”

One of Balsam Brands’ Chinese partners employs 15,000 to 20,000 people; another in Indonesia has up to 10,000, he said. Many are seasonal workers, since orders for Christmas décor slow down between October and February.

Balsam Brands, which is based in Redwood City, California, studied whether it could make faux trees in Ohio during the first Trump administration, when President Donald Trump threatened -– but eventually delayed –- tariffs on imported Christmas décor, Harman said.

The company hired consultants and considered automating some work. But it concluded a tree that currently sells for $800 would cost $3,000 if it was made in the U.S. Harman said Balsam couldn’t even find a U.S. company to make the pair of gloves it includes in each box for fluffing out branches.

Lee Display employs three or four people for most of the year, adding more during the holiday rush to help with installations and displays. About half its business is making custom displays for companies such as Macy’s, while the other half is selling directly to consumers.

Latino said he likes that he can produce an order quickly instead of waiting for it to ship from overseas.

“You have more control over it. I like to think that everything here is either my fault or my mistake or my careful planning and skill,” he said.

The tariffs still affected Lee Display. Latino's son James, who leads business development and marketing, said the company didn’t import lights or decorations from China this year and relied on items it already had in stock. It's getting low on lights, so next year it will have to pay more to import them, he said.

Some artificial tree companies are branching out so they’re less reliant on China. National Tree Co., which is based in Cranford, New Jersey, moved some manufacturing to Cambodia in 2024, and could source all its trees from outside China by next year if it wanted to, Butler said.

But diversifying their suppliers didn't make those companies immune from the impact of tariffs either. In April, the Trump administration threatened a 49% tariff against products from Cambodia. That rate was eventually reduced to 19%. Tariffs on artificial trees from China also bounced around but now average 20%, according to the American Christmas Tree Association.

Butler said his company imported fewer trees this year and also raised prices by 10%. He said he used a lot of the money to offer customer discounts since demand was weak because of consumer worries about the economy.

“It’s a discretionary item. People say, ‘I can wait one more year,’” Butler said.

Balsam Brands cut its workforce by 10%, canceled travel, froze raises and even stopped serving lunch in the office once a week to absorb the impact of tariffs, Harman said. It also raised tree prices by 10%.

Harman said his sales are down 5% to 10% this year in the U.S. but up 10% or more in Germany, Australia, Canada and France. That tells him tariffs have decreased U.S. demand.

“If a merry Christmas is measured in how many decorations people put up, by that measure it's going to be a slightly less merry Christmas,” he said.

AP Video Journalist Terry Chea contributed from Fairfield, California.

Anjali Bisaria shops for an artificial Christmas tree at the Balsam Hill outlet store in Burlingame, Calif. on Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Mac Harman, founder and CEO of Balsam Hill, looks at artificial Christmas trees at the company's outlet store in Burlingame, Calif. on Dec. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Juan Gonzalez assembles an artificial Christmas wreath at Lee Display's warehouse, in Fairfield, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Mark Latino, CEO of Lee Display, works with a machine that makes tinsel brush for artificial Christmas trees at the company's warehouse, in Fairfield, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Melissa Webb assembles an artificial Christmas tree at Lee Display's warehouse, in Fairfield, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)