UNLV gunman was unemployed professor who had 150 rounds of ammunition and a target list, police say

By RIO YAMAT and BEN FINLEY (Related Press)

LAS VEGAS — A 67-year-old faculty professor who was denied jobs at numerous Nevada faculties and universities stuffed loaded handgun magazines into his waistband earlier than strolling right into a College of Nevada, Las Vegas campus constructing and killing three school members, police stated.

After police killed him in a shootout, Anthony Polito was discovered to be carrying 9 magazines for a 9mm handgun he’d legally bought final yr and likewise an inventory of targets on the college — though none of these shot had been on that listing, police stated Thursday.

He was killed in a shootout with police about 10 minutes after the primary experiences of photographs fired in Beam Corridor, a enterprise college constructing.

Police nonetheless had no motive for Wednesday’s assault, which additionally left a 38-year-old visiting professor in life-threatening situation at a hospital.

The college was to stay closed Friday however was tentatively scheduled to reopen subsequent week for finals.

Polito arrived at UNLV at 11:28 a.m., about quarter-hour earlier than the capturing, in a 2007 Lexus that he parked in rather a lot south of the enterprise college, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill stated.

Polito obtained out of the automotive, positioned objects in his waistband after which entered Beam Corridor at 11:33 a.m. The primary experiences of gunfire got here at 11:45 a.m., McMahill stated.

Terrified college students and professors cowered in school rooms and workplaces because the gunman roamed the highest three flooring of UNLV’s five-story Lee Enterprise College.

College and metropolis police swarmed into and outdoors the constructing. UNLV police Chief Adam Garcia has stated the primary college officer arrived on the enterprise college inside 78 seconds of the gunfire report.

Close to the principle entrance, UNLV officers noticed Polito leaving the constructing and he shot at them, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Division assertion stated Thursday evening.

The officers fired again, killing him on the scene.

Authorities searched Beam Corridor and located two folks lifeless on the third flooring and one sufferer lifeless on the fourth flooring, the assertion stated.

Investigators consider the wounded survivor was shot on the fifth flooring, however he managed to make it to the bottom flooring.

Scholar Jordan Eckermann, who was in a second-floor classroom within the enterprise college when the rampage started, stated the timestamp on a brief cellphone video he recorded confirmed the constructing’s alarm went off at 11:48 a.m., three minutes after the capturing began.

It’s unclear what number of photographs Polito fired, however the sheriff stated Polito introduced greater than 150 rounds of ammunition to the campus.

Provided that sheer variety of rounds, McMahill stated he believed Polito might have been meaning to open hearth on the coed union subsequent to the enterprise college, the place college students had been hanging out, consuming and enjoying video games.

Polito additionally was carrying what McMahill described as a “goal listing” of named school members each from UNLV and from East Carolina College in North Carolina, the place Polito taught on the college’s enterprise college from 2001 to 2017.

He resigned from East Carolina as a tenured affiliate professor, in keeping with a press release Thursday from the college.

“Not one of the people on the goal listing turned a sufferer,” McMahill stated, including that police have contacted everybody on the suspect’s listing, aside from one one that was on a flight.

A touch digital camera in Polito’s automotive confirmed that earlier than heading to campus, he stopped at a publish workplace in Henderson, the place he was residing, police stated.

Police found that he had dropped off 22 letters to school school members throughout the U.S.

Some contained an unknown white powder that was later discovered to be innocent, police stated.

Police didn’t instantly disclose the character of the letters or different particulars.

The sheriff stated at a information convention that investigators had been nonetheless trying right into a motive however famous that Polito utilized for a number of jobs at numerous faculties and universities in Nevada and was denied the job every time.

Nevertheless, Roseman College of Well being Sciences in Henderson stated Polito had an adjunct school contract and taught two programs within the college’s the Grasp of Enterprise Administration program from October 2018 to June 2022. He left when this system was discontinued, stated Jason Roth, a spokesperson for the varsity.

Authorities on Thursday stated Polito gave the impression to be struggling financially. After they arrived at his condo Wednesday evening to look the property, they discovered an eviction discover taped to his entrance door, McMahill stated.

Inside, detectives discovered a chair with an arrow pointing all the way down to a doc “much like a final will and testomony,” McMahill stated with out elaborating.

Additionally Thursday, UNLV President Keith E. Whitfield recognized two of the victims who had been killed as enterprise college professors Patricia Navarro-Velez and Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang. Whitfield stated the title of the third sufferer will likely be launched after kinfolk have been notified of the dying.

In a letter to college students and workers, Whitfield stated that the capturing “was probably the most tough day within the historical past of our college.”

Navarro-Velez, 39, was an accounting professor who held a Ph.D. and was presently targeted on analysis in cybersecurity disclosures and information analytics, in keeping with the varsity’s web site.

Chang, 64, was an affiliate professor within the enterprise college’s Administration, Entrepreneurship & Know-how division and had been educating at UNLV since 2001. He held levels from Taiwan, Central Michigan College and Texas A&M College, in keeping with his on-line resume. He earned a Ph.D. in administration info programs from the College of Pittsburgh.

The assault at UNLV terrified a metropolis that skilled the deadliest capturing in trendy U.S. historical past in October 2017, when a gunman killed 60 folks and wounded greater than 400 after opening hearth from the window of a high-rise suite at Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip, simply miles from the UNLV campus.

It wasn’t instantly clear how lengthy Polito had been residing within the Las Vegas space.

Considered one of Polito’s former college students at East Carolina, Paul Whittington, stated Polito typically talked about his common journeys to Las Vegas. He additionally appeared obsessive over nameless scholar opinions on the finish of every semester, Whittington stated.

Polito informed Whittington’s class that he remembered the faces of scholars who gave him dangerous opinions and would specific that he was certain who they had been and the place they sat, pointing at seats within the classroom, Whittington stated.

“He at all times talked in regards to the adverse suggestions he obtained,” stated Whittington, now 33, who took Polito’s intro to operations administration class in 2014. “He didn’t get numerous it, however there would at all times be one scholar each semester, or no less than one scholar each class, that might give a adverse evaluation. And he fixated on these.”

___

Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Related Press reporters Michael Balsamo in Washington, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Terry Tang in Phoenix and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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