‘We made eye contact’: Brown University student describes alleged gunman breaking into lecture hall

Joseph Oduro, a Brown University student, said he was in a lecture room leading a review session for an upcoming economics final when an armed man wielding a rifle burst through the door and looked him in the eye.

“Immediately when I saw him, I saw a gun,” Oduro told the ABC News correspondent. Whitney Johnson in an interview on Sunday. “The gun was so big and long that I really thought, well, this is the end of the road for me.”

At least two people were killed and nine others were injured in Saturday’s shooting, according to authorities. The gunman fled the campus, but on Sunday morning, police said a person of interest, whose name was not released, was detained at a hotel in Coventry, Rhode Island.

No charges have yet been filed in the case and police have not commented on a possible motive.

Oduro said he was in room 160 of the Barus & Holley on Brown’s campus in Providence, Rhode Island, with about 50 to 60 students, when they suddenly heard a loud commotion, including what sounded like screaming and gunshots, outside the door.

“And about five seconds later, we see a gunman come in from the left side,” said Oduro, who said he will graduate this month.

Oduro said the gunman was wearing dark clothing from head to toe and appeared to be wearing something protruding from his chest, saying it could have been ammunition or a bulletproof vest. He said the gunman was completely covered except for his eyes and part of one hand.

“We made eye contact,” Oduro said. “I know he muttered something, he yelled something, I don’t know exactly what he said, but he walked into the room and you could see the panic in all the students’ eyes,” Oduro said. “I was standing in the front so “As soon as he walked in, he immediately saw me and I immediately saw him.”

He said that when the shooting started, he saw some students run out the door and others drop to the ground, “whatever it takes to stay alive.”

Oduro said he immediately dropped to the ground and instructed the students to take cover behind a table which he was also hiding behind. He said the gunman was about 30 feet from him at the top of the amphitheater-style conference room.

He estimated he heard between forty and fifty gunshots and said some victims in the conference room were shot multiple times.

Oduro said he believes all of the students who were shot in the incident were part of his review session.

Oduro said he texted his parents in what he thought might be his last message to them.

“I texted them and said, ‘I love you all and I’m sorry for all the trouble I put you through and I love you all and I’m grateful for all your lives,'” Oduro said, showing the text messages to ABC News.

Oduro said that as he lay petrified on the ground, he was simultaneously trying to comfort a student who had been shot in both legs and was in excruciating pain.

“If she had made a noise… something like that and the gunman had heard it, we have no idea what would have happened. I think the state of emergency would have been much worse. So I gave her my hand to squeeze as hard as she could,” Oduro said. “I told him, ‘Give me all your pain because I can take it.'”

He said the time they waited for the shooting to stop “seemed like 14 days.”

Oduro said that when the gunman left the room, he and other students who were still at the scene stood still.

“You don’t know if he’ll come back, and the chances of him going to another room are extremely high. So if we try to leave and find another exit, maybe we’ll run into him again, and you’ll be able to escape once, but you definitely won’t escape twice,” Oduro reasoned.

He said that even when police first entered the room and told students to put their hands up, no one moved.

“None of us complied because we all thought it was just another shooter,” Oduro said.

Another Brown student, Ref Bari, told ABC News he was inside the Barus. & Holley Building when the shooting broke out.

“The shots rang out behind me,” Bari said.

Bari said he had just finished a meeting with other students for a school project and was walking down the stairs to the first floor. He said he heard six or seven pops, but didn’t immediately recognize the noises as gunshots, saying, “I’ve never heard anything like that in my life.”

“I looked behind me very quickly and the Barus lobby & Holley was empty, or so it seemed,” Bari said. “In front of me, the ERC [Engineering Research Center]the similar common area of ​​Barus & Holley is filled with about a hundred students.”

Bari said people didn’t notice the commotion at first and described students as wearing headphones as they prepared for exams and final projects.

“So, in that split second I thought, ‘Ok, maybe I misheard something. And then it just goes, like pop, pop, pop again,” Bari said. “And then I don’t look back. I just run as fast as I can.”

When people in the common area began to realize what was happening, everyone started running toward one of the two exits, Bari said.

“So, let’s imagine a hundred kids trying to run through two exits,” Bari said.

He said he didn’t notice anyone screaming or panicking: “It’s just silence and gunshots behind us,” Bari said.

Bari said that when he came out, he called out to his parents as he continued running across the street to the science library.

“The people coming out of the science building had no idea what was going on. So as I was running, I started yelling, ‘Active shooter! Run!'” Bari said.

He said he planned to run to his apartment, but ran into a friend who invited him and other students to her apartment to shelter in place.

“We hid in their bathroom for about two hours, four of us in a small bathroom for two hours,” Bari said. “And it was scary, but I think because of her, I’m alive now.”