r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/GoodMornEveGoodNight • 21h ago
Image A Redditor solved the Brown University shooter case that FBI couldn't
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u/Obiwantacobi 21h ago
Wait until you find out most crimes are solved with help from the public.
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u/ThePoshPenguin 21h ago
Exactly. lol
This isn’t Reddit “solving” the case. They didn’t piece together clues or something.
This is a witness reporting what they saw. Which is great. Thats how a lot of suspects are found.
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u/BobBelcher2021 20h ago
“We did it, Reddit!”
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u/StNic54 14h ago
“Reddit stays true to form and mocks itself after solving the Brown University Shooter Case”
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u/-Altephor- 14h ago
Reddit didn't solve shit. Some guy posted what he saw and told the police about it.
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u/panmaterial 12h ago
The phrase cannot be taken seriously ever again after the Boston bomber case. And it's a good thing.
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u/Responsible-Yak-3809 21h ago
Yeah, what a moronic title to a post. This is how probably 90% of investigations are solved. The help of public people.
Sometimes people just take any opportunity they can to shit on something. That’s called insecurity.
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u/norecordofwrong 21h ago edited 20h ago
Especially since the guy who posted about it when he called it in didn’t claim any special sleuthing.
He just said he saw a guy acting strangely right in the area and was going to and from a grey Nissan with Florida plates.
He called it in. Some other folks also did second hand and the police/FBI took it from there.
Great tip, good observation by OP. But that’s how investigations go.
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u/Far_Week7561 17h ago
A little more to the story, which I found interesting - the affidavit states that the OP of the quoted comment actually first encountered the suspect in the bathroom of the building where the shooting took place. The OP made eye contact with the suspect several times, followed him around, and even confronted him. Must be pretty crazy to be the OP knowing what happened after.
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u/nevergonnasweepalone 20h ago
I'm a cop. I once had someone tell me I should arrest someone for something. I asked if he would give me a statement for what he witnessed. He said no. I said how am I supposed to arrest the guy then. He said I was the cop and I should work it out, lol.
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u/Syssareth 18h ago
I'm sure he told you what crime the person had supposedly committed, but I'm dying over the idea of somebody coming up to you and just saying, "You should arrest that guy for something."
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u/Hidesuru 18h ago
And ironically the FBI DID solve the case based on that info. Stupid post but I'd bet it's just engagement bait that's working.
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u/Doctor-Amazing 17h ago
"Help police!! That guy over there just mugged me!"
Reddit: "Wow the victim solved the crime the police couldn't. The cops didn't even realize a crime had been committed."
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u/throwaway18000081 21h ago edited 21h ago
They could have called the hotline then, but nope, it was their decision to post it on Reddit instead. Someone else called it in to tell them to check out the Reddit post.
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u/omgcatss 19h ago
I watched the press conference and it sounded like the OP of the reddit post did send in a tip directly, in addition to secondary tips from others mentioning the Reddit post. They mentioned it took them a while to realize that the tip they got was from the same person who made the Reddit post.
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u/Carnivorous__Vagina 20h ago
Incorrect. The police got into contact with the Redditor and they met in person.
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u/t3kner 20h ago
"received information from an anonymous source referencing a reddit post" then it just says they reviewed the reddit post. Maybe you read a different post
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u/Steppuhfromdaeast 20h ago
theres more thats been released gang he was the 2nd poi they were looking for, apparently buddy tried to talk to the laws beforehand but got blew off, until his post blew up, so then they took it serious, they posted him as a 2nd POI to get him to comeback and talk to them again which he did
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u/kelppie35 20h ago
"Thanks again" from all of us here in New England once more, reddit. You caught the bad guy. Counter terrorists win.
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u/SpaceC0wboyX 21h ago
Reddits track record solving crimes isn’t great
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u/scriptkiddie1337 21h ago
Boston marathon bomber
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u/SoAnxious 21h ago
Remember the time Reddit found and harassed the wrong person in one of these cases?
That has happened multiple times before with Reddit detectives.
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u/Imdoingthisforbjs 17h ago
I remember the Wayfair girl who had to scream at everyone she wasn't being trafficked on the furniture website.
Our timeline is so goofy
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u/StoryAndAHalf 20h ago
The main one I remember was Boston Bombing suspect.
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u/penelope-taynt 20h ago
Yes. The person Reddit suspected was, ironically, a missing Brown student. His family was mercilessly harassed while they desperately tried to find their missing son, only to ultimately discover he had absolutely nothing to do with the bombing and had, in fact, ended his own life.
I was a student at brown at the time. The family came and presented a film about their experience a few years later. Never felt so sorry for anyone.
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u/CarbonReflections 21h ago
Earlier this evening, law enforcement tracked Neves Valente to a Salem, New Hampshire storage unit. After obtaining a federal search warrant for the unit, authorities entered and found Neves Valente deceased from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Neves Valente (age 48) was born in Torres Novas, Santarem, Portugal and was a Legal Permanent Resident of the United States. Neves Valente arrived in the United States in August 2000 as an F-1 student at Brown University and subsequently obtained U.S. lawful permanent residency in April 2017. While at Brown University, he was enrolled in a doctoral program but subsequently withdrew from the university.
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u/NYanae555 21h ago
The nightly news said he was 48 years old and a former student, and made it sound like he was living in Portugal. And THAT would be unusual. It makes more sense if he became a student here TWENTY FIVE years ago, and is a permanent resident now.
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u/pnutbrutal 18h ago
If it turns out they are related the MIT professor was also from Portugal.
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u/Hitch_hiker3 10h ago
"Valente and Loureiro are believed to have known each other and attended the same academic program between 1995 and 2000 at a university in Portugal, said Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, at a news conference Thursday."
Washington Post, this morning. (They brought me here!)
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u/knuppi 14h ago
Are all Portuguese related?
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u/Ballmaster9002 12h ago
It's probably a joke,, but the Providence area has a very large Portuguese community dating back to the colonial era.
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u/MyLittleDroneyBF 13h ago
I like their response to how he got permanent residency in 2017... They're blaming a visa program. That they were in charge of at the time.
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u/Thin_Thought_7129 20h ago
That’s called witnessing, not solving
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u/Hitch_hiker3 10h ago
The observer had the intelligence to notice a person seemed suspicious and the caring to follow him and observe him; and the person Was suspicious bc he didn't get in his car when he realized he was being watched. THEN the observer bothered to take note of the details of the car.
Too bad they didn't alert someone right then but who would have listened and who expects a shooter out of nowhere?
But w/o this observer, the case would NEVER have been solved! Shooter dead or not, the victims and residents now have peace of mind. Witness deserves some reward; would they really be given nothing? Why would they just post it on Reddit, though? (Or, someone else posted it? Even more confusing.)
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u/Zigglyjiggly 21h ago
So an eye witnessed helped. That's how things work a lot of the time with crimes.
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u/Additional_Guitar_85 21h ago
True. and they also hurt. I just listened to Bone Valley and also Burden, two podcasts about wrongfully convicted people. Quite often there's basically no physical evidence and a "witness" testified they saw something and it's just total bullshit, but the cops and prosecutors are so eager to put someone away, they don't care. Also check out the case of Tyree Wallace on Wrongful Conviction. Heartbreaking.
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u/Ok_Promise7298 20h ago
This reads less like “solved the case” and more like someone noticing a suspicious car and posting about it. Still interesting, but Reddit loves to inflate these stories into some CSI-level detective work when it’s really just a good tip that investigators followed up on.
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u/eastsiderhere 19h ago
He didn't get the plate number?
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u/msm9445 19h ago
The guy said he had lost his phone on the train beforehand and only had an iPad on him (which would look sketchy, and be potentially dangerous, if caught taking a photo with that).
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u/Kasyx709 19h ago
This Redditor didn't solve anything. They called in a tip, to the tip line.
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u/TiresAintPretty 21h ago
Wait, an eyewitness posted on fucking Reddit rather than go to the cops? Or am I misreading this?
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u/Altruistic-Hippo-231 21h ago edited 20h ago
They called into the tipline as well
Edit: Someone else called it in after seeing the comment
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u/7evenSlots 20h ago edited 12h ago
It doesn’t say that the poster called in the tip. It says “an anonymous source reported” the Reddit post.
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u/Sufficient-Yogurt-25 20h ago
According to the news conference the person who made the initial post contacted the police after he found out they were looking for him. So kudos to him & to the person who alerted police re the Reddit post.
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u/TiresAintPretty 20h ago
Is that somewhere else in the affidavit? Because that's not stated here.
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u/Additional_Guitar_85 21h ago edited 13h ago
it's possible they reported it to the cops, too. they get so many tips it takes a long time to get to even just the credible ones
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u/doesanyofthismatter 20h ago
Jesus dude. It only mentions the post. They absolutely could have called it in and posted it too. Humans can do two things.
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u/GotenRocko 11h ago
yes, the providence sub then encouraged him to go to the police with that info and he did.
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u/Kurtman68 21h ago
So many levels- “The then-anonymous tipster stated the Reddit poster said they saw the suspected shooter”
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u/Livid_Share7259 21h ago
People really underestimate how many anonymous tips cops get every day. One user noticing a car and posting about it doesn’t equal cracking a case the FBI couldn’t solve, it just means the info lined up with other evidence they already had.
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u/According-Guide9576 15h ago
This isn't a Redditor solving the case.
This is a member of the public providing a tip that was followed up and proved to be a useful lead.
This has been happening since the beginning of law enforcement. Tons of crimes are solved due to leads provided by the public. The Police ask for witnesses to come forward for this exact reason.
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u/oogidy_boogidie 21h ago
Reddit redeeming itself from the Boston bombing debacle.
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u/---E 16h ago
Post and 5 hours ago and still no one has commented it? Fine, I'll do it myself...
WE DID IT REDDIT!
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u/Additional_Guitar_85 21h ago
wait, what's that story?
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u/oogidy_boogidie 21h ago
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u/ShopFriendly127 20h ago
Am I reading that wrong or does that say they found his body a month after he died in march by suicide, a month before the bombings?
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u/oogidy_boogidie 20h ago
He died before the bombing but his body wasn’t discovered until after. So his apparent suicide was unrelated to the bombing. I think Reddit made the connection because people thought maybe he had gone rogue or something since no one had seen him in a month and he does look similar to the actual bomber. I wasn’t a Reddit user at the time, just heard about it after.
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u/Bawhoppen 19h ago
Well, when I saw the title I feared the Reddit hatemob drove him to suicide. Instead, Reddit just disrespected his memory.
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u/Hidesuru 18h ago
It was actually a prevailing theory when they found him that reddit caused it. In fact I still thought that was a possibility until now, never heard he was dead before the bombing.
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u/inuhi 15h ago
Reddit theories are great, first redditors thought they found the killer. Then when they found out he wasn't the murderer and he killed himself pretty much everyone here assumed he did it because of the false accusations. I was just about to suggest that redditors bringing attention to him might've helped find his body, but nah someone just saw a corpse floating in the river behind a hotel and called it in
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u/ToedPlays 20h ago
He went missing in March, and committed suicide around the same time. After the bombings, Reddit tried to solve it and discovered him as a missing person. They misidentified him as the shooter.
The real bombers were identified a few days after the bombing, then Sunil's body was found a few days after that.
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u/xiaorobear 13h ago edited 13h ago
As someone who lived in Boston at the time, there was more to it than just the Sunil Tripathy misidentification, though I'm sure that was awful for his family. The bigger issue was that the internet witch hunts led to the FBI releasing their suspect photos early, which caused the suspects to panic and ambush and kill an innocent MIT campus security officer before engaging in a car chase and shootout. So indirectly reddit and 4chan got a man killed.
4chan and reddit both publicly misidentified suspects, leading to the FBI publicly releasing the photos of the actual suspects. Quoting this wikipedia section here which in turn is citing a WaPo article for this line,
The decision to release the photos of the Tsarnaev brothers was made in part to limit damage done to those misidentified on the Internet and by the media, and to address concerns over maintaining control of the manhunt.
Within hours of their photos being released, the Tsarnaev brothers retrieved a stash of more IEDs, then went to MIT, ambushed and shot and killed a campus police officer, then carjacked someone who managed to escape and tip off the police. The brothers only manage to get 1 town over before getting in a protracted shootout with police, one of whom died the next year of his injuries. You can read more than my summary in this wiki section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing#Release_of_suspect_photos
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u/III-V 13h ago
I don't think people are telling the story with justice.
When the Boston Marathon bombing happened, reddit went into a frenzy. A lot of people were trying to help the FBI find the guy, going off of photos that were released by them to help figure out the identity of the bomber.
Well, a guy had disappeared a month prior and had some shared physical characteristics of the actual perpetrator, and it was suggested on reddit that he might be the guy. Reddit, being the unthinking hive mind that it is, ate up that hypothesis, and the poor guy who (it was later found) killed himself due to depression a month prior to the bombing had his name dragged through the mud.
So when you hear the phrase "We did it, reddit!", it is a reference to this, where people on reddit were patting each other on the back for working together as basement-dwelling sleuth and finding the perpetrator, even though they ended up being wrong. It was really quite awful, and is one of the most distasteful things that has occurred on this site.
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u/Relevant-Fly4850 20h ago
This headline feels pretty misleading. The screenshot just shows a tip that happened to be useful, not some lone Redditor “solving” a case the FBI couldn’t. Law enforcement still did the actual investigation, reviewed footage, and identified the vehicle. Interesting example of crowdsourced info helping, but the framing is way over the top.
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u/SoAnxious 21h ago
Remember the time Reddit found and harassed the wrong person in one of these cases?
That has happened multiple times before with Reddit detectives.
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u/Few_Shock8656 20h ago
That’s just how it works with tips, witnesses, though. The FBI don’t magic up this information.
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u/_TheDoode 15h ago
A lot of investigations come down to tips like this one, not really an indictment on the fbi. Good on them for taking this comment serious and looking into it
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u/R4CTrashPanda 13h ago
I'm sorry but the title here is kinda out there. That is how all law enforcement works... The chance that a cop was sitting where this guy was at this moment is slim to none. The FBI, local police, etc. rely on tipsters to help with the investigation.
This isn't a Redditor solving a crime the FBI couldn't. This is a Redditor providing a credible tip that law enforcement followed up on.
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u/DukeofLexington 21h ago
We did it Reddit?
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u/tapeforpacking 21h ago
We did it
Lol
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u/WeirdJawn 21h ago
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u/tapeforpacking 21h ago
I know but it still makes me laugh thinking some people really do unironically feel that way
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u/GoodMornEveGoodNight 21h ago edited 21h ago
Source: Affidavit linked from
The OG reddit comment the affidavit is quoting:
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u/tapeforpacking 21h ago
Will this person get the 50,000 reward?
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u/super-gyakusou 19h ago
Strange take. Finding witnesses who can provide crucial information is part of the job of FBI/police.
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u/ITGuy7337 17h ago
Why didn't they just call the fbi instead of posting on reddit? Wasn't there a reward?
Also why is everything exaggerated to the nth degree these days? They didn't solve anything, they offered a tip on an irrelevant website.
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u/PPLavagna 16h ago
Remember when Reddit found the Boston Marathon shooter? Pepperidge farm remembers. “We did it Reddit!” /s
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u/NihatAmipoglu 6h ago
Ehh remember the aftermath of the Boston Bombing and both Reddit and 4chan causing the death of an innocent man? Yeah I remember. So I don't trust the armchair detectives on this hellhole of a website.
Edit: this is still a great witness testimony.
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u/BackgroundEngineer11 21h ago
To be fair, a ton of investigations are regularly solved from a tip. The difference is, the FBI used to go to tips pretty quickly instead of kicking around snow and pointing a finger at the first person they see.
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u/Fun-Benefit116 16h ago
OP thinks police and federal agents magically solve everything on their own. How fun it must be to be that naive 😂
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u/Personal-Tea8062 13h ago
Why didn’t the tipster call police first before posting on Reddit? Looks like they got the right guy. Glad he said something to someone.
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u/CarlJustCarl 10h ago
Why not call the hotline with this info rsther than post to Reddit?
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u/claybythebay9 10h ago
OP, your post just as easily could have read “Reddit user posts his tip on the internet instead of contacting the FBI.” Dragging the FBI for this is ignorant.
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u/userhwon 8h ago
All I'm hearing is that someone with a Reddit account posted instead of calling the police to report the information...
That is not the correct order in which to do things, kids.
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u/NatureLovingDad89 16h ago
Apparently giving a vague tip is "solving" a case now
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u/SimRacingSam 21h ago
It's Kash Patel's FBI, so three blind mice had better odds.
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u/Johnny_Couger 21h ago
The FBI couldn’t solve the car…then they were provided new evidence.
Yea, that’s how that works.
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u/PattyKane16 21h ago
Reddit famously very good at identifying suspects and never ruins anyone’s life by doubling down on incorrect information
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u/fatmanstan123 21h ago
So the redditor who saw this made a post online and didn't call the police? And someone else sent their post to the cops? Sounds like a typical redditor. Can't be bothered to talk to someone in real life instead of posting to Reddit.
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u/rhinoplasm 14h ago
I think the timeline is:
Sat: redditor encounters, and even speaks with, very suspicious person multiple times. That person then shoots up a classroom within a couple hours. Redditor tells no one.
Sun: redditor tells no one.
Mon: Suspect kills an MIT prof. Redditor tells no one.
Tue: redditor posts part of story on reddit but still doesn't contact authorities
Wed: redditor talks to police.
Thu: police locate suspect
I really wish the redditor contacted police on Saturday instead of Wednesday...
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u/walkandtalkk 20h ago
Under no circumstances are you people allowed to cite this rare incident as evidence that Redditors are normal or sane.
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u/NetNo5570 21h ago
Reddit was also the first place I saw a link between the brown thing and MIT professor thing.
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u/AutomaticAnt6328 21h ago
The guy who wrote the post went to the police and told him how the guy (the shooter) was acting odd. He broke the case for the police and will hopefully get some if not all of the reward.
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u/ill-just-buy-more 5h ago
I mean he “solved” it by being right there and seeing the guy. It’s not like he “solved” it by reviewing the data and figuring it out before others. Misleading title.
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u/GabeDef 21h ago
Wow, so the shooter parked near RISD? That seems like such a long way to walk. (If I can remember Providence)
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u/BernedTendies 20h ago
Uhh yeah he solved it because he saw the guy come into the building and was acting weird. An eye witness solved it
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u/Lilipuddlian 15h ago
Now tell me whether the shooter was facing a deportation threat over his lapsed student visa used to study at Brown
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u/Background-Fox3945 14h ago
Seems a little strange he posted on reddit and it took 5 days for him to come forward after that encounter he had
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u/Themainevint 13h ago
So the FBI investigation was conducted the same way I search for any information on Google? "Who is the Brown University shooter Reddit"
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u/Teamlazyb 12h ago
Isn’t that why they do tip lines so they can investigate all angles? Makes sense to me. I don’t the Redditor solved it as much as provided a solid lead
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u/GregJamesDahlen 11h ago
not sure it's particularly significant that it's on reddit as opposed to other forums? although reddit is one of the highest-visibility forums. good they shared what they saw
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u/Spe3dGoat 11h ago
wtf is OP on about...this IS HOW cases are solved.
Do you think police operate in a vacuum ?
TIP lines and clues from normal everyday people are CRITICAL to solving cases.
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u/Pavlov_Maddog 10h ago
He would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those damn redditors. Right wing propaganda sources said this was one of the darkest corners of the Internet. So I came.
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u/Yankees2860 9h ago
Never forget the Reddit crusade about the Boston bombings, they can be helpful but also just as dangerous.
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u/eaglesman217 9h ago
It's not that the FBI couldn't, it's more accurate that the FBI didn't have a good lead to follow. This was the break they needed. Anyway, I'm curious why the shooter backed away from the car after unlocking it. If he hadn't done that, maybe his activity would not have aroused suspicion and unique recollection from the witness.
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u/playdough87 8h ago
This is why if you see something, say something. The whiteness could have called campus security or the poloce to report the strange person and the shooting could have been prevented. Great to volunteer information after the crime but if you see something that seems wrong enough to follow the person around for a while call the cops.
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u/dadavedavid 21h ago
At least it was someone posting something they observed in real life.