How a Reddit tipster cracked the Brown University and MIT shooting cases

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Having unleashed a multiagency manhunt — involving the Providence police, the FBI and a $50,000 reward — the clue investigators needed in the Brown University shooting was ultimately found not on a street corner but in a Reddit thread

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Having unleashed a multiagency manhunt — involving the Providence police, the FBI and a $50,000 reward — the clue investigators needed in the Brown University shooting was ultimately found not on a street corner but in a Reddit thread.

Online tipsters have had a mixed record when it comes to providing information about mass casualty incidents. But Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said this Reddit user “blew the case wide open” after posting about their encounter on Saturday with the suspect.

“I’m being dead serious,” wrote the Reddit user, identified in an affidavit as “John,” three days after the shootings at Brown. “The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental.”

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In police interviews that followed, the Reddit user said he had bumped into the suspect in a bathroom inside the Barus Holley building at Brown and noticed his clothes were “inappropriate and inadequate” for New England's December weather, the affidavit said. John followed the suspect outside, leading to a “game of cat and mouse” that ended when the suspect confronted him and asked, “Why are you harassing me?”