Donald Trump’s party is seizing on fringe theories to bolster their claims that the fatal shooting at Brown University was a politically motivated attack.
Authorities on Monday released surveillance footage of the suspected shooter in Providence, Rhode Island, in the Saturday attack that killed Aziz Umurzoko, an aspiring neurosurgeon, and Ella Cook, the vice president of Brown University’s Republican Club, and injured nine others.
The video shows an individual dressed in all black walking along a sidewalk. It quickly drew a reaction from MAGA influencers, who began speculating—without evidence—that the suspect’s gait was proof of a left-wing motive.
“Not sure I can explain this, but he walks like a leftist,” conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley shared with his 2.3 million followers on X.
Another MAGA influencer, known as “Salty Goat,” echoed the sentiment to his roughly 300,000 followers on Tuesday morning.
“I’ve seen a couple of people on here say it and after watching it I have to agree,” he wrote. “This ‘person of interest’ definitely walks like a leftist. Watch it and you’ll see exactly what I mean.”
The so-called evidence isn’t as infallible as MAGA may hope. In the clips circulating online, the only remotely distinctive feature of the suspect’s gait is that, at one point, their hands appear clasped behind their back—a posture some right-wing users online likened to a feminine stance.
“That was the first thing I said when I saw the video,” one X user wrote in response to Salty Goat’s post. “I thought it might be a woman for a minute until I saw the second video. And then I thought, it’s an effeminate man.”
The speculation is part of an attempt from the right to frame the shooting as a targeted political attack following revelations about Cook’s involvement in the Republican Party—even as Trump himself has acknowledged that investigators have not determined a motive.
“Ella Cook was just 19 years old—a Conservative, a Christian, and Vice President of the Republican Club at Brown University. She was brutally killed by a shooter in what appears to be a targeted political attack,” conservative podcaster Benny Johnson wrote on X, alongside a list of violent attacks against right-wing figures such as Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk.
“If you still don’t see what’s happening, you haven’t been paying attention.”
The chairman of the College Republicans of America wrote on X that he was filled with “rage and sadness” after learning Cook was supposedly targeted “for her conservative beliefs, hunted, and killed in cold blood.”
MAGA Congressman Andy Biggs agreed, declaring, “Enough is enough. Political violence must come to a swift end.”
Government data and numerous independent studies paint a far different picture of who is most at risk of politically motivated attacks. For years, right-wing extremism has been far deadlier than left-wing violence. In 2024, for example, all extremist-related murders were committed by right-wing extremists, with white supremacists behind eight of the 13 killings and the remaining five having connections to far-right anti-government extremists, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The search for the shooter entered its fourth day on Tuesday. Until Monday, police had released just one video of what they believe shows the suspect walking near campus. Neither clip provides a clear view of the individual’s face, and authorities have said surveillance footage from inside the campus building where the shooting occurred is unusable. The shooter is believed to have fled the campus on foot.
The FBI has described the suspect as “approximately 5’8” with a stocky build” and is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.
“Anyone with information please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (225-5324) or the Providence Police Department at 401-272-3121,” FBI Director Kash Patel said.
On Sunday, Patel announced that the FBI had tracked down a person of interest—only for local authorities to later release the individual, an embarrassing twist for the Trump-appointed director.
When asked on Monday whether Patel had explained why identifying the shooter had proven so difficult, Trump attempted to shift blame to the university itself.
“You’d really have to ask the school about that because this was a school problem,” Trump said. “They had their own guards, their own police, their own everything. But you would have to ask that question to the school and not to the FBI.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the FBI for comment.
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