FBI director draws flak for early announcements on Brown shooting suspect, to then retract
More than 12 hours after a person shot nine people and killed two students at Brown University, FBI Director Kash Patel shared that a person of interest had been arrested. Several law enforcement agencies amplified the news but later retracted it and released the person.
Patel has remained silent on the matter.
“Early this morning, FBI Boston’s Safe Streets Task Force, with assistance from the US Marshals and the Coventry, Rhode Island, Police Department detained a person of interest in a hotel room in Coventry, RI, based off a lead by the Providence Police,” Patel wrote Sunday on X.
Patel hasn’t made a retraction on his account as of publication. He’s since written or shared posts about the search for a suspect, but has made no apologies or formal statements about his earlier post.
Michigan State University Criminal Justice professor David Carter said it’s unusual for FBI directors to make such statements, as that’s either left to the FBI special agent in charge or to the local law enforcement agency.
“It’s just unusual because a director usually just doesn’t do that, and particularly on something like X,” Carter told Straight Arrow News. He described it as a compulsion to be the first when a person publicizes information about a crime.
For the Providence Police, locating a possible suspect is complicated because the agency leads the investigation. Officers have published photos and videos of whom they believed to be the person who shot and killed Brown University students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov on Dec. 13. Nine people were wounded in the shooting, according to The Associated Press.
The FBI’s Boston Field Office added a possible $50,000 reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person responsible for the fatal shooting.
Patel’s rush to use X in investigations
Patel has been criticized for his prioritization of using his X account to talk about ongoing criminal investigations. Former directors Christopher Wray and James Comey did not use accounts beside the FBI’s own to share statements or updates.
Patel made a similar blunder in September 2025 after the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk. The FBI director posted on X that the “subject for the horrific shooting” was in custody. An hour later, he said the person had been released, but that information was being shared “in the interest of transparency.” Both posts are still live.
His post about the freed person of interest is also still online.
“It is incredibly cruel as we just saw, to the community of Providence and particularly to the students at Brown who thought for a moment that they were safe,” former FBI Special Agent Michael Feinberg told MS Now on Monday. “That the problem was contained and that they did not need to worry anymore.”
Carter echoed Feinberg’s sentiment and said that when, particularly for students or anyone affected by a major event like a mass shooting, police walk back statements about a person’s capture, it creates a sense of insecurity and fear among people.
“It is why law enforcement is careful about how they word statements during similar situations,” Carter said. “They often will release photos or videos when they can to gather tips and issue reassurances about the public’s safety in the midst of an investigation.”
The use of X or other social media platforms is not uncommon for police departments, he added. Some will use it to reach the public more effectively, but many people vet all information shared before hitting “publish.”
“So public information like that is responsible,” he said. “It’s accountable. It’s transparent, but the wording is really important.”
The Brown shooting stepped into new territory Sunday.
Leak exposes release-person’s identity
Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said during a Sunday press conference that evidence pointed law enforcement away from the arrested person, and they needed to be released.
“What is really unfortunate is that this person’s name was leaked to the public,” he said. “It’s hard to put that back in the bottle.”
Police departments exercise caution when naming suspects, as they could face liability if a person is misidentified. Carter said it boiled down to police not wanting to affect public safety or the integrity of their investigations negatively. Being wrong about a person’s identity also jeopardizes the public’s trust.
“While there is some criticism of law enforcement sometimes for not releasing information or releasing very little information, there’s a good reason behind it,” he said.
In the case of a top FBI official releasing information too early or information that proved false, Carter said the director needs to be held accountable. He does not know if Attorney General Pam Bondi or President Donald Trump will take action, so it rests on Patel’s shoulders.
“This is just unusual,” Carter said. “The director usually stays out of doing this.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
