News reports have identified the gunman who killed three and wounded another on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas on Wednesday as a professor who unsuccessfully sought at job at the school.
Campus police got calls about an active shooter at Beam Hall, home of the school’s business college, at about 11:45 a.m. They and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police responded “immediately,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said, and the shooter was pronounced dead by 12:30 p.m., as CrimeOnline previously reported.
ABC News named the suspect as Anthony Polito, 67, citing multiple law enforcement sources. The Las Vegas Review Journal said that it obtained a copy of Polito’s driver’s license with a Henderson address, and when reporters arrived at the apartment complex on the license, they found police tape blocking access and officers in a building corresponding to the address.
A law enforcement source with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that the suspect had previously worked at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.
According to a website in his name, Polito earned a PhD in management from the University of Georgia, an MBA from Duke University, and undergraduate degrees from Radford University. In addition to East Carolina University, he taught at the University of Georgia, the University of Northern Iowa, Wake Forest, the Roseman University of Health Sciences, and Brenau University, according to the website, which describes him as “a semi-retired university professor.”
UNLV Police Chief Adam Garcia. said the shooting began on the fourth floor of Beam Hall and that the gunman went to several floors of the building before he was confronted by two university detectives outside the building and died in a shootout with them.
Police have not identified the victims or said if they were students or staff. The wounded person was taken to a hospital in critical condition but later upgraded to stable.
McMahill said four other people were taken to a hospital with “panic attacks” during the incident and that two police officers suffered minor injuries while clearing the building.
Professor Kevaney Martin told the AP that she hid under a desk in her classroom, joined by another faculty members and three students.
“It was terrifying. I can’t even begin to explain,” Martin said. “I was trying to hold it together for my students, and trying not to cry, but the emotions are something I never want to experience again.”
Once they got out of the building, Martin said she piled her students into her car and drove them off campus.
“Once we got away from UNLV, we parked and sat in silence,” she said. “Nobody said a word. We were in utter shock.”
Classes at the school have been cancelled through Friday.
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[Featured image: The investigation into the shooting went into the night/(AP Photo/John Locher)]
