One of the Brown University students killed in the campus shooting had considered moving her seat shortly before the attack, a teaching assistant in the class revealed.
Joseph Oduro, the teaching assistant conducting the review session when a gunman opened fire Saturday, told The Wall Street Journal that Ella Cook signaled to a friend across the room that she wanted to move to sit by her as he began the review session.
“You could kind of see them making eye contact,” Oduro told the outlet. “She was about to get up, to move and sit next to her friend, but she felt a little bit embarrassed, you could just tell from her face.”
Cook, an Alabama native who was vice president of the Brown University College Republicans club, was one of two students killed Saturday, along with Aziz Umurzokov of Uzbekistan. Nine others were wounded.
Oduro said that toward the end of the review session, he saw a person dressed in dark clothing, wearing a ski mask, enter the lecture hall. He and the gunman locked eyes before he “screamed something indecipherable” and raised his gun, according to the Journal.
Oduro estimated the gunman fired 40 shots into the room. He noted he believed Cook and Umurzokov were ultimately killed because they were walking up the aisle toward the exit when the gunman entered.
“I wish (Cook) had gotten up and moved,” Oduro said. “I wish she had sat with her friend.”
President Trump’s MAGA movement has maintained, without providing any evidence, that Cook’s death was a targeted killing. Several prominent figures within the conservative movement have alleged that Cook was killed for political beliefs.
Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson said in a social media post that Cook was “brutally killed by a shooter in what appears to be a targeted political attack.”
Authorities, however, have said that a motive for the shooting is not yet known, as there is currently no suspect in custody. The MAGA movement’s unfounded claims run counter to Oduro’s first-hand witness account of the shooting, which suggests that Cook being in the line of fire was random.
Umurzokov was not originally planning to attend this review session. According to the Journal, he had been to brunch with a friend that morning and was planning to see a movie with another friend that evening. He chose to accompany a friend to the review session, as he often did for classes he was not enrolled in, to keep his friend company.
“It wasn’t even his class. He just happened to be there,” his sister told the outlet. His family said he had dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon.
The manhunt for the gunman is entering its fourth day in Providence, Rhode Island on Tuesday, as officials continue to ask the public for help in identifying the suspect.
Authorities released new images and video footage of a “person of interest” that had been taken two hours before the shooting. They show a person wearing a black mask walking near campus. The FBI describes the suspect as being “approximately 5’8” with a stocky build.”
A separate person of interest who had been taken into custody over the weekend was released Sunday as he was cleared of involvement in the attack.
Brown University canceled final exams and classes for the remainder of the semester following the shooting. A gathering to honor the victims in the shooting will take place later Tuesday, Providence City Councilor Sue AnderBois said.
