Brown University shooter made 'barking' noises as he shot college students: witnesses

The Brown University shooter apparently made "barking" noises as he committed the mass shooting on Saturday, according to witnesses to the events. Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente, 48, was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire on Thursday evening.

Officials said that witnesses recalled hearing bizarre "barking" noises coming from the shooter before he opened fire. "There are some witnesses who said he said nothing. There are some that say he made a barking noise,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a press conference.

“Don’t ask me. I don’t know why. And that’s it. There is no other spoken word beyond that, that we are aware of," Neronha said. The revelations come as authorities are trying to determine what motives Valente had when he carried out the shooting.

Valente shot dozens of rounds at students in a classroom on Saturday and then two days later shot down an MIT professor Nuno Loureiro in his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Valente attended Brown University over two decades ago and also attended a Portuguese university with the professor whom he shot.

The gunman had gone to Brown University as a PhD student, but a motive has yet to be identified. "I don’t think we have any idea why now, or why Brown, or why these students, why this classroom,” Neronha said.

The shooter was found dead at the storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire after authorities made the connection between the two shootings by identifying a vehicle connected to the shooting that was then seen in the area of the shooting of the MIT professor. The vehicle was abandoned at the storage facility before Valente took his own life.