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Comment by javiramos | Hacker News Reader

Could this be related to the Brown shooting?

From ABC -

"Authorities have investigated whether his death could be connected to this weekend's Brown University shooting and, at this point, a senior law enforcement official briefed on both cases told ABC News there is nothing to suggest they’re connected."

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mit-professor-shot-killed-home-bos...

Absolutely useless without a name and reputation on the line. It's an absurd to publish that multiple academics killed within an hour drive within one week have "nothing to suggest they're connected".

Are you from Boston / have you lived there? I do, and thank you for your concern. But this is confusing to say the least.

1. No one should be stupid enough to put their name and rep on the line, in a fluid situation, where there’s 0 idea who did the first anyways, for days now.

2. Dunno what you mean by academics, students and professors? Usually academics refers to professors / grad students / has a job at university related to teaching, but Brown victims weren’t professors. Hard to see how that indicates a connection.

3. It’s a real stretch to put Providence to Brookline at a 1 hour drive. In general, it’s two different worlds, so it’s strange to use it as a clear indicator they must be related.

4. If it’s obvious they’re connected, and making any claim of probability re: their connection should require putting your name and reputation on the line, what’s your name?

You are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of trust. Aaron Katersky and Josh Margolin put their name on the line because without that you wouldn't know the provenance of the information and wouldn't know if you should trust it. Citing an unnamed officer making claims that they have insufficient evidence for is not good journalism, so their reputation takes a hit. The officer also deserves this reputational hit since they are making the unsubstantiated claim.

To be very clear here, the claim is that "there is nothing to suggest the two sets of predmeditated murders within a week within an hour are related". The fact that they're the same demographic, high profile, using the same weapon, close in proximity, and close in time are all concrete things that relate them. It is embarrassing to state otherwise, so the officer was not named. However the reporters are not immune to this, so they take the hit.

I am not stating the positive "they are related", I am refuting the negative "they are unrelated".

And as for my identity: I am not a reporter or public official. You don't need to and shouldn't use me as a source of truth. I am a member of the public applying logic to facts. I am closer to this event than you but I won't say more. As a member of HN who respects privacy I'm sure that should be enough for you.

> using the same weapon

The same weapon being.. a gun? Hardly a notable connection.

You aren’t refuting a negative because the statement isn’t “they are unrelated” the statement is “(with current information) there is nothing suggesting they are related”

If you’re close to the situation, and have a substantiated reason to believe the claim that there’s no current information suggesting they’re related is inaccurate, you should be able to back that up. Except we both know you can’t, because you’re attempting to refute something that wasn’t actually said.

Other comments cover the “logic” being applied here. Dunno who those two names are. I’m genuinely worried about your grip on reality based on your writing, I don’t say that lightly and am very, very, serious, to the point I’d prefer to eat downvotes and offend you than hide that and possibly contribute to you worsening.

I hope you’re extremely close to one of these events and are extremely distraught, even though that’s tragic, because it would indicate you’re not just comfortable disassociated from reality.

Note the difference in your approach this morning versus now, to wit, you this morning: “ We have no info but he was the department head of the MIT PSFC. It's easy to imagine a deranged individual picking a high profile target by browsing MIT's website. Or it was a domestic dispute or road rage or any number of things that would drive someone to shoot someone in their home. We have no information and can only speculate.”

The gaslighting is touching, but I hadn't had a mental shift between the morning and evening. I had a big response to a public official lying. The right answer (and officers that were on the record actually said this on Tuesday) that "all options are on the table". You'll see from subsequent statements today that ABC's prior publishing of the statement that "there is nothing that suggests the Brown University and MIT murders are related" was baseless and untrue.

Not only did the public official lie, but was given voice and reputational cover by ABC. This is deserving of the criticism I give it.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/brown-mass-shooting-mit-professor-...

"Gaslighting" - I came back to note you were right. Also, you weren't being gaslit, and you were incoherent. You could have replied to any one of us with anything explaining yourself and didn't. Like, the same weapon one was especially bizarre. Note that "No indication" is same as "all options are on the table", as was repeatedly noted to you.

>4. If it’s obvious they’re connected, and making any claim of probability re: their connection should require putting your name and reputation on the line, what’s your name?

Steve Lookner?

  authorities believe Brown University shooter used rented vehicle that is same make and model of car connected to killing of MIT professor"

https://x.com/lookner/status/2001763177185579260

Authorities and the university have also been asking for tips but then flipping the script as soon as they get them: "Accusations, speculation and conspiracies we're seeing on social media and in some news reports are irresponsible, harmful, and in some cases dangerous."[]

Also worth noting... at one point the arrested the wrong guy.

They have no clue. And become hostile when people try to come up with one. While scrubbing student profiles and simultaneously claiming they have no knowledge of doing so. The whole thing is a total clown show and nothing said by the authorities is to be believed without independent verification.

[] Brown University spokesperson Brian Clark

Without further context, I don’t blame them for being hostile towards “Accusations, speculation and conspiracies…on social media and in some news reports”. Remember the Boston bombing? Tips shouldn’t be public.

Well maybe they should have been a bit more open to "conspiracies" since they're now saying they think they're connected and that they found a link of the same make/model car at both. Seeing as the "homeless guy" who remembered the plate was seemingly ignored for 5 days, he should have just blasted it on X.

Fortunately at least one person on reddit posted about the car 2 days ago ( https://old.reddit.com/r/providence/comments/1pnkwoq/fbi_pos... ) posted it, since it seems to be one of the few ways to get heard.

Update:

The murder was solved due to a post to reddit

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G8giswDXoAAV-Cp?format=png&name=...

Tips should be "public" in this case because that's the only way they get noticed enough to garner attention. Wouldn't surprise me if "homeless man" was ignored by the cops if he tried earlier, or "homeless man" was too afraid to approach them directly because of how cops treat the homeless.

They're only 40 miles apart. Moreover, they're both (apparently) premeditated gun murders targeting academics at famous universities.

edit to add: (For those who weren't aware, the Brown University terrorist is still on the loose).

One was a home invasion that may or may not be related to the victims work on fusion plasma. It is very likely unrelated to that work.

The other was a mass shooting style event that targetted an exam preperation review hall populated by econ students and led by a 21-year-old teaching assistant.

It's a stretch to connect an isolated murder of a field advancing physics researcher and a hall full of students just because all the victims are involved in book learning.

Possible connection, sure. At an improbable stretch.

ChatGPT can certainly knock up a Clancy like novel here, no doubt.

Is there any evidence this murder was related to the professor's work?

put another way, is there any sort of proof that this guy wasn't banging his neighbour's wife, or embezzling funds, or otherwise doing something shady?

In a different state, no less.

My understanding is that the border security between those states is rather lax.

On the off-chance that someone believes that there is border security between US states but that these states are an exception.

The US doesn't have border security between states.

The closest thing to an exception is the "don't bring agricultural products into California" stations. However, there's a bypass lane for folks who stayed within 10 miles of the border, and no one checks whether someone is using that lane inappropriately.

Thank you. I dropped this: /s

The distance between Providence & Brookline is only slightly further than the distance between Dallas & Fort Worth. New England states are tiny.

If it is, do you think it’s the Iranians taking revenge on American civilian scientists, or a Ted Kaczynski type?

This is my theory as well. A google search for the late prof's name returns a .ir website at the top of the result for some reason. It's a tragic loss for the world and his loved ones as are the victims of the brown incident.

My apologies for dismissing this a couple of days ago.

No need to apologize! It was totally rational to assume that these two events were unrelated. It is a wild sad story and we'll likely learn about the motive over the coming weeks. This story hit me particularly hard as I live about a 3 minute walk from the victim's house in the Brookline area.

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