President Donald Trump said no motive has been identified for the suspected gunman who remains at large after opening fire inside a classroom at Brown University in Rhode Island Saturday.
Although police originally detained a man in a Rhode Island hotel in connection with the fatal shooting that took the lives of two students, authorities announced Sunday that they had released the man and the hunt for the suspect resumed Monday.
“We’re going to see what happens,” Trump told reporters Monday. “Hopefully they’re going to capture this animal.”
When asked why the FBI, who is supporting local law enforcement in Rhode Island with their investigation into the matter, had struggled to identify the shooting suspect, Trump said that doing so is always difficult and that the issue lies with the school.
BROWN UNIVERSITY WAS ‘SOFT TARGET’ FOR SHOOTER WHO REMAINS AT LARGE, CRIMINAL PROFILER SAYS
“This was a school problem. They had their own guards,” Trump said. “They had their own police, had their own everything. But you’d have to ask that question really to the school, not to the FBI. We came in after the fact, and the FBI will do a good job, but they came in after the fact.”
Two students died in the shooting, and another nine were injured. One of the victims of the shooting was identified as Ella Cook, a sophomore from Alabama who served as vice president of the Brown University College Republicans, according to authorities.
The other victim was identified as Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, authorities said. Umurzokov and his family are naturalized citizens from Uzbekistan now living in Virginia, according to The New York Times.
Fox News’ Stephen Sorace and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
