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Neighbors in the Boston-area community where MIT professor Nuno Louriero was shot to death inside his apartment building earlier this week said they were stunned by the mysterious killing.
Loureiro was gunned down at the entrance to his Brookline apartment on Monday night, the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. He was subsequently transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead Tuesday morning.
Less than 24 hours later, neighbors gathered outside of Loureiro’s three-story apartment building to pay their respects to the professor and express their concern over such a violent act taking place in their usually quaint neighborhood.
“It’s scary to be in Brookline,” Lloyd Rosenthal, a local resident, told Boston 25 News. “It’s supposed to be safe, [but] no one’s talking.”
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The Brookline Police Department and Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office are investigating Loureiro’s death, the Massachusetts State Police said in a statement to Fox News Digital. However, no suspects have been named.
“I heard three loud bangs,” an unnamed neighbor told Boston 25 News. “I thought at first it was somebody in our apartment kicking in the door or something.”
“I don’t know what happened or why it happened,” neighbor Anne Greenwald told the outlet. “It’s very scary, though. We’re living in such terrible times right now that it seems like violence is just happening everywhere.”
Eurydice Hirsey, another Brookliner, told Fox News Digital she met Loureiro through his wife, Ines, and that the couple shares three children ranging in age from elementary school to college.
“We take [dance] classes together several times a week,” she said. “I just saw her last night.”
“It’s a family that’s feeling such raw horror… terror,” said Hirsey. “And what do you do with something that’s indescribable?”
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Hirsey’s husband added that the “only answer to terrorism is a strong civil society.”
“And in the meantime, we face a lot of hate and suffering,” he said.
The renowned professor joined MIT in 2016 and was appointed to the helm of the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center last year, where he aimed to research and expand clean energy technology, according to The Associated Press. The center stands as one of the school’s largest laboratories and had over 250 employees when Loureiro was selected as its leader, the school’s website stated.
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Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Ted Docks, special agent in charge of FBI Boston, said investigators have found no connection between Loureiro’s death and the shooting at Brown University – located about 50 miles away – that left two students dead and nine injured over the weekend.
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Loureiro was an accomplished researcher and leaves behind his wife and three children. He studied physics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2000, and later earned a doctorate in physics at Imperial College London in 2005.
Loureiro completed postdoctoral work at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory from 2005 to 2007, and at the UKAEA Culham Centre for Fusion Energy from 2007 to 2009. Before joining MIT in 2016, Loureiro held a research position at the Institute for Plasmas and Nuclear Fusion at IST Lisbon.
The Brookline Police Department, Norfolk District Attorney’s Office and Massachusetts State Police did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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“Our deepest sympathies are with his family, students, colleagues, and all those who are grieving,” MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen wrote in a statement to Fox News. “Focused outreach and conversations are taking place within our community to offer care and support for those who knew Prof. Loureiro, and a message will be shared with our wider community.”
In a statement posted to social media, U.S. Ambassador to Portugal John J. Arrigo added, “I extend my deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Nuno Loureiro, who led MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. We honor his life, his leadership in science, and his enduring contributions.”
Fox News Digital’s Tessa Hoyos and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
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