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Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that
someone helped bring a swift end to the violent scene Monday
afternoon by intervening and trying to subdue the shooter, who
was at an arena to watch a family member's hockey game. The
shooter died from an apparent self-inflicted gun wound, she
said, noting that authorities were still investigating.
“It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a
family dispute,” she said.
Goncalves identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, who she said
also went by the name Roberta Esposito and was born in 1969.
The police chief did not provide further details about the
shooter or the victims, except for saying it appeared that both
victims who died were adults.
She said investigators were trying to piece together what
happened and have spoken with scores of witnesses who were there
inside Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles outside
Providence. They also were reviewing video taken from the hockey
game. Unverified footage circulating on social media shows
players diving for cover and fans fleeing their seats after
popping sounds are heard.
Outside the arena, tearful families and high school hockey
players still in uniform were seen hugging before they boarded a
bus to leave the area.
Monday's shooting came nearly two months after Rhode Island was
rocked by a gun violence tragedy at Brown University, where a
gunman killed two students and wounded nine others. That shooter
went on to also fatally shoot a Massachusetts Institute of
Technology professor. Authorities later found Claudio Neves
Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a New
Hampshire storage facility.
“The fortunate thing is that the two incidents are not related,
but it is very tragic,” Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien said. “These
are high school kids. They were doing an event, they were
playing with their families watching, a fun time, and it turned
into this.”
Pawtucket is nestled just north of Providence and right under
the Massachusetts state border. A city of just under 80,000,
Pawtucket had up until recently been known as the home to
Hasbro’s headquarters.
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