(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Brown University student is suing several news stations for falsely reporting that he was a suspect in the school shooting last December, which killed 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and wounded nine others.
The student, Ben Erickson, was identified on Dec. 14 by WKOW 27 in Wisconsin as the “man detained in deadly Brown shooting.” At the time, officials took a person into custody that anonymous sources identified as a 24-year-old man from Wisconsin. That individual, whose name was never released by authorities, was later released.
Here is a portion of the late-night press conference Sunday in Providence, RI after the Brown University shooting person of interest was being released and no longer seen as a suspect.
Things are NOT going well for local and state officials pic.twitter.com/koXC5spkro
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 15, 2025
“Contrary to the December 14 internet post, Ben was never named a ‘suspect’ in connection with the Brown University mass shooting,” Erickson’s lawsuit says. “Moreover, even after the perpetrator of the Brown University mass shooting was identified, the Defendant failed and refused to issue a retraction, correction, or make any edits whatsoever to the December 14 internet post for more than 100 days.”
Erickson seeks compensatory damages for the harm done to his reputation. He’s suing Allen Media Broadcasting, which owns the stations that falsely accused him of being a suspect. Allen Media Broadcasting has until May 27 to respond.
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, was eventually named as the true alleged shooter. Authorities say Neves Valente, who had been a graduate student at Brown studying physics during the 2000-01 school year, also fatally shot Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at Loureiro’s Boston-area home two days later.
Neves Valente, who had attended school with Loureiro in Portugal in the 1990s, was found dead days later in a New Hampshire storage facility. Neves Valente had reportedly “vanished” for years before his attack.
The New York Times profiled the Brown/MIT shooter today. According to his friends and family, he "vanished" in 2013, never to be seen again by them. pic.twitter.com/ZphxvKSiDF
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) January 8, 2026
Justice Department officials said in January that during the search of the storage facility where Neves Valente’s body was found on Dec. 18, the FBI recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos made by Neves Valente after the shootings.
In the recordings, the shooter admits in Portuguese that he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. In a transcript provided by the Justice Department, he said he had been working out details for at least six semesters. He did not provide a motive for targeting Brown or the MIT professor, with whom he attended school in Portugal decades ago.
He said he felt he had nothing to apologize for. He also complained in the videos about injuring his eye in the shootings.
“I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said.
Neves Valente said his “only objective was to leave more or less” on his “own terms” and to ensure he “wouldn’t be the one who ended up suffering the most from all this.”
According to police, a witness had several encounters with Neves Valente before the attack at Brown. As police posted images of the person of interest, the witness began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” gray Nissan. Reddit users urged him to inform the FBI, and the witness said he did.
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
