Politics
NEW: Brown Shooting Victim Identified As College Republican Vice President
The first victim in the Brown University shooting has been identified as 19-year-old Ella Cook, a sophomore student and vice president of the school’s college Republican club, according to her Alabama parish and a former classmate.
The news of Cook’s death was first shared during a church service at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in her hometown of Birmingham. “Some of you have heard the tragedy yesterday of Brown University, the shooting, of a number of people. And, tragically, one of our parishioners, Ella Cook, was, one of those who was killed yesterday,” a priest announced during Sunday’s service.
“And those of you who knew her, those of you who know her, she was an incredible, grounded, faithful, bright light. Not only here, growing up here at the Advent and the myriad ways in which she served faithfully and the ways in which she encouraged and lift up those around her,” he added.
Cook served as vice president of the university’s Republican club
Photo: LinkedIn
Cook is survived by her parents and two siblings, according to the parish.
Former Brown student Alex Shieh, who dropped out of the university last semester, shared that Cook was the vice president of the Brown University Republican club. In an X post, he shared that Cook was one of the only people who dared to associate with him after he came under fire for sending a DOGE-inspired email to the Ivy League school’s administrators.
“Everyone at Brown who knew Ella, regardless of their politics, found her to be friendly and kind. My thoughts are with Ella’s family. Ella was a promising young leader taken too soon,” Shieh wrote on X.
Cook was one of two students who were gunned down during a finals review session on the university’s campus late Saturday afternoon. The other slain victim has been identified as Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, a neuroscience major.
A native of Uzbekistan, he was described as being “incredibly kind, funny and smart” in a GoFundMe page established by relatives.
“He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation, and was the most kind-hearted person our family knew,” Samira Umurzokova wrote. “Our family is incredibly devastated by this loss.”
Nine additional students were injured in the shooting, one of whom remains in critical condition as of Monday morning.
Umurzokov was an aspiring neurosurgeon
The gunman, described as a male dressed in black and armed with a rifle, fled the scene on foot. Surveillance footage captured an individual in dark clothing, including a hood, walking north along Hope Street and Waterman Street with a hand in a jacket pocket
A person of interest, 24-year-old Benjamin Erickson from Wisconsin and not affiliated with Brown University, was detained early on December 14 at a Hampton Inn in Coventry, Rhode Island, about 28 miles from campus.
He was found with two firearms, one matching the reported description. However, he was released later that day without charges after evidence shifted the investigation in another direction.
The ongoing manhunt for the still unidentified gunman involves Providence Police, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office, the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team for geolocation analysis, and more than 400 personnel from various agencies.
“We are working with what we have, and, obviously, we have somebody at the police station, that person of interest. And we’re going to continue to build that case in order to be able to charge that person,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said during a press conference. “We have a murderer out there.”
