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Reddit comment led police to identify Brown University shooter

A comment in a Reddit thread was what led police and FBI investigators to identify the Brown University shooter. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said the comment on Reddit was what enabled police to track down the rental car which enabled them to identify the shooter …

Reddit can be such a useful source of information that it’s common for people to Google for tutorials and add the “site:reddit.com” suffix to their search terms. But even by Reddit standards, it’s pretty wild that it was a comment in a thread on the Brown University shooting that led to the identification of the culprit.

One Redditor posted a copy of the FBI poster seeking information to r/providence. Another Redditor by the username lamin_kaare and identified only as “John” responded:

I’m being dead serious. The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving. It was parked in front of the little shack behind the Rhode Island Historical Society on the Cooke St side. I know because he used his key fob to open the car, approached it and then something prompted him to back away. When he backed away he relocked the car. I found that odd so when he circled the block I approached the car and that is when I saw the Florida plates. He was parked in the section between the gate of the RIHS and the corner of Cooke and George St.

A third person called the FBI tip line to point them to the post, and John was subsequently interviewed by Providence and Rhode Island State Police. NBC News reports Neurona confirming that this was what led to the identification of the shooter.

“That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of that individual renting the car, which matched the clothing of our shooter here in Providence, that matched the satchel,” the attorney general told a news conference.

FBI agent Ted Docks said that John should be entitled to the $50,000 reward offered by the agency.

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Photo: FBI

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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