The daughter of a Rhode Island shooting suspect has identified her father as the shooter, revealing he was ill and struggled with mental health issues. A youth hockey game ended in tragedy on Monday, with three people, including the suspect, fatally shot.
Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves confirmed to the AP that three other victims were hospitalized in critical condition and that the gunman appeared to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
She said authorities were continuing to investigate, although police were not involved in the shooter’s death.
She said investigators are working to piece together what happened and are talking to witnesses to the shooting at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles from Providence. They also checked the video recorded during the hockey game. Unverified footage circulating on social media shows players scrambling for cover and fans running from their seats to the sound of cracking sounds.
Read also | Rhode Island shooting at youth hockey game leaves three dead, video emerges
Outside the arena, grieving relatives and high school hockey players, still in their uniforms, hugged each other before boarding buses to leave. Roads around the venue were closed and a heavy police presence remained at the scene with helicopters circling overhead.
Monday’s shooting comes nearly eight weeks after Rhode Island was rocked by another violent shooting at Brown University, where a gunman killed two students and wounded nine others. The gunman also fatally shot a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Investigators later found 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a warehouse in New Hampshire.
Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien mentioned, “The fortunate thing is that the two incidents are unrelated, but it’s very tragic. They’re high school kids. They were doing an event, playing with their families and watching them, it was fun and then this happened.”
Read also | Shooting at 7-Eleven store in Manhattan leaves 1 dead; suspect on the run
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it responded to the scene of the shooting and was ready to support local authorities if needed.
FBI Director Kash Patel called X and said, “@FBIBoston is responding to a shooting this afternoon at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, RI – we will provide state and local law enforcement with all necessary resources and keep the public informed as much as we can. In the meantime, please pray for the victims and their families.”
Located north of Providence and bordering Massachusetts, Pawtucket is a city of nearly 80,000 residents. Until recently, it was primarily known as the seat of Hasbro’s corporate headquarters.
Monday’s shooting at a high school hockey game comes just two months after a mass shooting at Brown University, which is only about 3 miles away. Mass shootings often occur in the United States, where relatively lax gun laws make firearms readily available.
In 2025, the Gun Violence Archive recorded more than 400 mass shootings — defined as incidents in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot or killed.
Overall, gun violence was responsible for at least 14,703 deaths last year, not including suicides.
(With input from agencies)