Police are looking into whether a shooting in Brookline, Massachusetts, that killed an MIT professor could be linked to the mass shooting at Brown University last weekend, four senior law enforcement officials tell NBC News.
Three senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told NBC News that authorities are looking into whether the same rental vehicle was seen at Brown around the time of Saturday’s shooting, then again Monday near the Brookline home of 47-year-ld Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a well-known nuclear science professor fatally shot that night.
Authorities have identified a person of interest in the Brown shooting, three senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told NBC News on Thursday.
At a press conference earlier this week, the FBI said there was nothing at that stage of the investigation linking the two shootings. As the investigations have continued, authorities are exploring additional leads to see if there is a connection.
Law enforcement officials in Providence declined to comment. Police in Brookline have not returned calls for comment.
Loureiro was shot at his home on Gibbs Street in Brookline on Monday night. He died from his injuries the following morning.
The prosecutor’s office said the homicide investigation was ongoing and no suspects were in custody as of Wednesday morning, but no further updates on the case have been released.
Brookline officials issued a statement about the investigation on Wednesday, seeking to quell “rumors and fear,” they said, that have been spreading throughout the community. But they said they were able to reveal a few details about the case.
Loureiro, who joined MIT in 2016, was named last year to lead MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he aimed to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of the school’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm.
The professor, who was married, grew up in Viseu in central Portugal and studied in Lisbon before earning a doctorate in London, according to MIT. He was a researcher at an institute for nuclear fusion in Lisbon before joining MIT, it said.
A 22-year-old student at Boston University who lives near Loureiro’s apartment in Brookline told The Boston Globe she heard three loud noises Monday evening and feared it was gunfire. “I had never heard anything so loud, so I assumed they were gunshots,” Liv Schachner was quoted as saying. “It’s difficult to grasp. It just seems like it keeps happening.”
Providence officials were originally expected to give an update at 4 p.m. on their investigation into last weekend’s shooting on the Brown University campus, which killed two students and injured nine others. But that press conference has been delayed indefinitely.
Authorities have released several videos from the day of the attack, which left two students dead and nine wounded, showing the person they’re seeking on the streets just off campus. The person is wearing a mask or has their head turned in the footage.
“I believe that this is probably the most intense investigation going on right now in this nation,” Providence’s police chief, Col. Oscar Perez, said at a Wednesday news conference. He said witness accounts of the shooter match the person in the videos.
Authorities have been canvassing nearby neighborhoods and have received hundreds of tips.
Providence police on Wednesday also released a new photo of a separate individual who they said was in “proximity of the person of interest” and asked the public to help identify that person.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
