The second Brown University victim killed in Saturday’s mass shooting has been remembered by his roommate as an aspiring neurosurgeon and a ‘ball of joy’. 

Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, of Virginia, was one of two students who was murdered during a horrifying rampage by a gunman who is still on the loose. 

His roommate, freshman Khimari Manns, has paid tribute to the 18-year-old American-Uzbek student as kind, intelligent, and ‘always there for you’. 

‘(He was) just a ball of joy, ball of energy,’ Manns told CBS affiliate WPRI.

‘He raises everybody else to a certain level. He made sure I had my stuff done. He made sure he had his stuff done. He was just always there.’

‘He was kind. He reached out to me as soon as we got roommate assignments,’ Manns added. 

‘Most importantly, he was just present. Whatever you asked him to do, he was always there for you.’

Manns said he sheltered in a restroom as gunshots rang out during the shooting, and he texted his classmates and Umurzokov while hiding from the killer. 

He started to worry about Umurzokov when he didn’t receive a reply. ‘Something didn’t feel right. I texted him, and then he didn’t text back,’ Manns said.

Manns tried to get in contact with Umurzokov throughout the evening by texting friends and calling the police, but did not hear anything. 

He said he was told that Umuzokov was one of the victims at 10am on Sunday. ‘It feels like not reality,’ Manns said.

Umurzokov’s devastated relatives remembered him as ‘incredibly kind, funny, and smart’ on a GoFundMe page launched to donate money to a charity in his name. 

‘He had big dreams of becoming a neurosurgeon and helping people,’ they said. ‘He continues to be my family’s biggest role model in all aspects. 

‘He always lent a helping hand to anyone in need without hesitation, and was the most kind-hearted person our family knew. 

‘Our family is incredibly devastated by this loss. 

‘Any donations will help significantly with any expenses my family will have to face, and the rest of the funds will be donated to charity in his name.’

Umurzokov’s two sisters, Rukhsora Umurzokova, 22, and Samara Umurzokova, 15, remembered him as ‘gentle’ and ‘extroverted’. 

His family are naturalized citizens from Uzbekistan who live in Virginia, and he was on a scholarship at the Ivy League college.   

The US Ambassador to Uzbekistan released a statement about Umurzokov’s death on Monday. 

‘I am deeply saddened by reports of the tragic death of Brown University student Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov on December 13,’ Ambassador Jonathan Henick said.

‘We extend our sincere condolences to Mr. Umurzokov’s family, friends, and fellow students and mourn the loss of his bright future.’

Ella Cook, 19, was also killed in the horrific shooting on Saturday, and nine more students were injured. Seven were still in hospital as of Monday morning. 

Cook was the vice president of Brown University’s Republican club. Her death was announced on Sunday during a service at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, where her family worships. 

The identification was confirmed by Rev. Craig Smalley, who paid tribute to the teenager during the Mass.

‘Tragically, one of our parishioners Ella Cook was one of those killed yesterday,’ Smalley said. ‘She was an incredible, grounded, faithful bright light. She encouraged and lifted up those around her.’ 

Smalley told how she grew up at the Advent church referring to ‘the myriad ways in which she served faithfully and the ways in which she encouraged and lifted up those around her, but at Brown University, she was an incredible light in that particular place as well.’

Cook, who was originally from Birmingham, was studying at Brown when she was shot during what authorities have described as a finals review session on campus.

FBI agents and cops detained a ‘person of interest’ identified as Benjamin Erickson, 24, hours after the deadly attack on Saturday – but he was later released. 

Erickson, an Army sniper originally from Wisconsin, was taken into custody for questioning about the shooting which killed two Ivy League students on Sunday.

However, within hours of his name being leaked to the public, authorities disclosed at a hastily-convened 11pm press conference that he would be freed. 

‘We have a murderer out there,’ said Attorney General Peter Neronha, while Providence Mayor Brett Smiley acknowledged that ‘the news is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community.’ 

Authorities have yet to disclose any leads on the murderer’s whereabouts as of Monday morning, sending Rhode Island residents into panic mode. 

‘So they let the Brown shooting suspect go and he’s no longer a suspect… and we’re just supposed to send our kids to school today?’ one local wrote on social media. 

‘It’s crazy how they haven’t caught him yet with all these cameras! I’m keeping my kids home!’ another anguished mother agreed.

The shooting unfolded at 4.05pm on Saturday, when an unidentified person fired 40 rounds from a 9mm handgun inside Room 166 of the Brown University School of Engineering’s Barus and Holley Building.

Despite an enhanced police presence at Brown, officials are not recommending another shelter-in-place order like the one that followed the shooting. 

Cops released surveillance footage of a man they are hoping to track down in connection with the shooting, shown from behind wearing all-black. 

‘I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,’ Attorney General Neronha said. 

He said that ‘certainly there was some degree of evidence that pointed to the individual’ who’d been taken into custody but ‘that evidence needed to be corroborated and confirmed’

‘Over the last 24 hours leading into just very, very recently, that evidence now points in a different direction,’ Neronha said.

The shooting occurred during one of the busiest moments of the academic calendar, as final exams were underway. 

Brown canceled all remaining classes, exams, papers and projects for the semester and told students they could leave campus, underscoring the scale of the disruption and the gravity of the attack.

As police scoured the area for the shooter, many students remained barricaded in rooms while others hid behind furniture and bookshelves. 

One video showed students in a library shaking and wincing as they heard loud bangs just before police entered the room to clear the building.

University President Christina Paxson teared up while describing her conversations with students both on campus and in the hospital.

‘They are amazing and they’re supporting each other,’ she said at a news conference. ‘There’s just a lot of gratitude.’