On Monday night, a lifelong Rhode Island resident and avid Reddit user logged on to the Providence subreddit to share an FBI poster showing the first images of the suspected Brown University shooter.
“It just seemed like a good idea to me,” the recent college graduate, named Joe, told MS NOW by phone on Friday of his decision to share the poster. “You could tell how active the subreddit was.” (Joe requested to be identified only by his nickname, not his full name, to protect his privacy amid heightened media attention, which he feared could jeopardize his job.)
He had no idea he would be kicking off a series of events that would lead police to identify and hunt down the suspect, who was found dead in a Salem, N.H., storage locker after two Brown students were killed and nine others injured in the Dec. 13 mass shooting at the Ivy League school.
Soon after Joe shared the FBI poster on the subreddit — a word for dedicated Reddit forums, which are often organized by topic or interest — a comment from another user began attracting attention.
“I’m being dead serious,” the user, under the handle lamin_kaare, wrote under Joe’s original post. “The police need to look into a grey Nissan with Florida plates, possibly a rental. That was the car he was driving.”
That commenter turned out to be the tipster who “blew this case wide open,” as Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha put it on Thursday night. The commenter, whom officials identified only as “John,” shared with police the information he had posted on Reddit regarding the car and where he saw it.
Other Reddit users also said they forwarded the tip to police. John later went further during an in-person interview with authorities, according to a police affidavit, describing a run-in he’d had with the suspect that began in the bathroom of Brown’s Barus and Holley building hours before the shooting took place.
Joe told MS NOW he found the tipster’s account “shocking,” adding that he was “not expecting to see that much detail” in a post on the subreddit.
John wrote in a follow-up post this week — before news of the suspect’s death — that he had spoken to law enforcement officers investigating the incident and that he was not planning to speak to the media. “I have said all I have to say on the matter to the right people,” he wrote. MS NOW could not reach him for comment via Reddit on Friday.
To Joe and other Redditors, John’s tip reflects the significant role the online space played for locals in the hours and days after the shooting, as police struggled to identify a suspect and the university canceled exams and sent students home. In the absence of official information — and as it slowly trickled out — shaken community members turned to the Providence subreddit to share what they knew, seek details from others and offer support.
“It is a bit surreal that the place where you go to share memes or trash-talk about NFL teams is being useful for something of this magnitude,” Joe said.
Spokespeople for Reddit did not respond to repeated requests for comment from MS NOW on Friday.
The subreddit’s page says it was created in 2010 and has 225,000 weekly visitors as of Saturday — up from 155,000 the day before. It functions as something of a virtual town square for scores of the city’s approximately 190,000 residents. Users discuss local politics, flag road closures and traffic jams, and seek recommendations for restaurants and entertainment.
But during the past week, its participants primarily focused on the search for the Brown shooter — and how it was affecting local life. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, users shared the active shooter alert on the Providence page, and several credited the subreddit with alerting them to what was unfolding. As the week stretched on, others shared words of support and links to news articles and other updates, such as when authorities were holding press conferences. Some also critiqued the slow-moving investigation and debated how law enforcement authorities should alter their tactics.
Online spaces like the Providence subreddit “have long been a way for people to share information with each other,” said Casey Fiesler, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied the growth of Reddit.
Fiesler pointed to several reasons why local residents would turn to the platform during a crisis instead of — or in addition to — other sources. One involves changes to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, under the ownership of tech billionaire Elon Musk.
“There are a number of things that used to be functions of Twitter that now are happening on Reddit instead,” Fiesler said, adding that both local Facebook groups and the smaller and newer platform of Bluesky play similar functions.
For Joe, Twitter “used to be the go-to place [to get information], especially as things were unfolding.” But he said he left soon after Musk bought the company in 2022 and introduced various changes, including softening its content moderation features and suppressing links to news sites. X’s former CEO, Linda Yaccarino, acknowledged that the platform lost millions of daily active users in the months after Musk’s takeover.
Joe said he posted the FBI images of the suspected shooter on Reddit to ensure they would reach people who might not see it in the news.
Fiesler also credited Reddit’s rise with the demise of local media coverage and a rise in paywalls on credible news sites. Reddit is free. Local news outlets in Providence, including Fox affiliate WPRI and the Providence Journal, provided critical coverage of the Brown shooting without charging viewers or readers. But Rhode Island, like many other states, has lost several local news sources in recent years. And media outlets, whether local or national, do not provide the place for connection that Reddit can.
“There’s a difference between finding out what’s going on via a news article and finding out how it’s impacting people,” Fiesler said.
Providence subredditors sought out that kind of support this week. In the days after the shooting, users grappled with what one called “the forced sense of normalcy in the city and state right now.”
“I understand that life has to go on eventually and the argument that the shooter has likely left the state at this point and there is no active threat,” a person with the username rfoster4779 wrote in a post. “But it still feels like we are brushing past what happened much too quickly and really showing how desensitized Americans are to gun violence.” Dozens of commenters agreed.
In other posts, users who might never have crossed paths in person checked in on one another. “My heart is heavy, I can’t work and act like everything is okay today,” a user with the name kenchybenchy wrote. “Hope everyone is doing okay mental health wise, and anyone with friends in Brown — I wish the same.”
“Cheers neighbor — hang in there,” a person with the username icehauler replied.
The communal vibes continued after news broke Thursday night of the fellow Reddit user’s role in cracking the case. Users flooded the subreddit to celebrate — and give thanks to — one of their own.
“I hope you know that this entire community truly thinks highly of you,” someone posted under the name Acrobatic-Increase 46, addressing the tipster, John. “You’re a hero.”
“I wanna throw him a parade,” another, named PeekabooAurora33, chimed in.
“I hope you get your payday,” a user by the name of tornshorts wrote. “You deserve it, you legend.”
The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for identifying the suspect, and officials have signaled that it may go to John.
“It would be logical to think that, absolutely, that individual would be entitled to that,” Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, told reporters Thursday night when asked if John would get the award.
On Friday, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley asked FBI Director Kash Patel to direct the $50,000 reward to John, calling him a “hero.”
Fiesler noted that while the crowdsourced Reddit sleuthing succeeded in identifying the shooting suspect in this instance, in the past it has not gone as well. Both she and Joe pointed to the example of a subreddit that popped up in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, on which users wrongly named several people as suspects while law enforcement conducted a dayslong search for the perpetrators. The mistakes prompted Reddit to issue a public apology.
“You do have to be really cautious with respect to this kind of thing on social media,” Fiesler said.
Joe, for his part, said he has never directly interacted with “John,” beyond urging him to report the information he shared about the suspect’s car to police.
But if he’s reading this, Joe has a message for him: “Good job.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW.