PAWTUCKET, Rhode Island — A shooting inside a Rhode Island hockey rink on Monday left three people dead, including the shooter, and three others injured, and two high school teams were playing on the ice as it all unfolded.
Someone helped bring a quick end to the violent scene Monday afternoon by intervening and trying to subdue the shooter, who was in an arena watching a family member’s hockey game, Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters. She added that the shooter died from his apparent self-inflicted wounds, noting that the authorities are still investigating the matter.
She added: “This appears to have been a targeted event, and may have been a domestic dispute.”
Goncalves identified the shooter as Robert Dorgan, who she said also went by the name Roberta Esposito and was born in 1969. Goncalves did not provide details on the ages of those killed, though she said it appeared both victims were adults. The three injured people were taken to hospital in critical condition as of Monday evening.
The shooting happened in the stands at Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles outside of Providence.
The game between the two high school teams was broadcast live. Several gunshots could be heard in a video that later appeared on social media as players and coaches raced off the ice at the other end of the rink. Another video showed some players wearing skates as they took shelter in nearby stores.
“I was on the ice, and at first I thought they were balloons,” Olin Lawrence, a goalie for one of the teams, told NBC affiliate WJAR in Rhode Island. “It was pop, pop, pop. And I thought it was balloons. But it kept going and it was actually gunshots. After the gunshots, me and my teammates ran straight to the locker room, and we just hid. We pressed against the door and tried to stay safe in there.”
“It was very scary. We were very nervous.”
Outside the field, tearful families and high school hockey players still in uniform could be seen hugging each other before boarding the bus to leave the area. Roads surrounding the square were closed with a heavy police presence before reopening late Monday afternoon.
As part of a social media post, the Boston Bruins said they were “deeply saddened that a place dedicated to celebrating hockey and bringing people together has been affected by this violence.”
Statement from the Boston Bruins: pic.twitter.com/7orJgA3myz
-Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) February 16, 2026
The Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Revolution all issued statements of support.
The shooting comes nearly two months after Rhode Island was hit by a separate gun violence tragedy at Brown University, where a gunman killed two students and wounded nine others. The shooter went on to shoot and kill an MIT professor. Authorities later found Claudio Nieves Valente, 48, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at a storage facility in New Hampshire.
“Fortunately, there is no connection between the two incidents, but it is very tragic,” said Don Grebien, Mayor of Pawtucket. “These are kids in high school, they were doing an event, they were playing with the fans and watching, and it turned into this.”
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
