The police announced on Thursday that the suspect in the deadly shooting at the University of Las Vegas in Nevada had a list of targets at the school. Three faculty members were killed and a fourth was injured by the gunman who opened fire on campus on Wednesday before dying in a shootout with police, according to university officials. (December 7)
Suspect in Las Vegas University Shooting Had Target List, According to Police
The police announced on Thursday that the suspect in the deadly shooting at the University of Las Vegas in Nevada had a list of targets at the school. Three faculty members were killed and a fourth was injured by the gunman who opened fire on campus on Wednesday before dying in a shootout with police, according to university officials. (December 7)
Colleagues Remember Three Faculty Members at Las Vegas University Killed in Shooting
Three faculty members at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas died this week and another was seriously injured when a lone gunman entered the campus and opened fire in the building housing the business college. (December 8)
Images from the Las Vegas University Shooting Scene
Images from the scene of the shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas show police officers near the area, where students and faculty gathered in classrooms and residences while the gunman roamed the upper floors of the building, killing several people and injuring another seriously before dying in a shootout with police. (Image: John Locher) (Read more) (11 of 11)
Videos of 911 emergency calls released by police on Friday reveal the voices of students and faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas hiding inside locked offices and under desks while the gunman fired outside, resulting in the deaths of three professors.
One woman calling 911, her voice trembling with fear, said, “There’s someone shooting. Please, hurry.” She described the shots as sounding like they were side by side. “I really want to go home.”
The gunman, 67-year-old Anthony Pulito, entered the business college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas around lunchtime on Wednesday and began shooting as he roamed the upper three floors, where faculty offices are located, according to police. In addition to the three people killed, a 38-year-old visiting professor was injured and hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.
After police killed Pulito in a shootout, he was found to be carrying nine magazines for a 9mm handgun he legally purchased last year and a list of targets at the school – though none of the individuals who were shot were on that list, according to police.
University President Keith Whitfield said on Friday that after this week’s shooting, students and faculty will not return to campus this year, and final exams scheduled for next week have been canceled.
University officials praised the efforts of the police and paid tribute to their fallen colleagues at a press conference on Friday evening.
Investigators Nathaniel Drum and Officer Damian Garcia, the university police officers, killed Pulito after he opened fire on them outside the business college. Both have been placed on administrative leave, a routine practice during a shooting review, according to University Police Chief Adam Garcia.
One graduate student was the first to call 911 on Wednesday and told the operator he was barricaded in his office on the fourth floor and saw a strange man walking by before the shooting began.
He said:
“There were a lot of shots and then screams,” he described what he was hearing. He estimated the number of shots to be about six.
There were many 911 emergency calls from family members of students or faculty on campus. One woman called after hearing from her daughter about the active shooter. She described her daughter as breathing rapidly and crying.
President Joe Biden spoke about the shooting during his visit to Las Vegas on Friday, stating that he was meeting with members of the university community and praying for the families of the victims.
The police still have motives for the attack on Wednesday, but they said that the shooter, who was a professional university professor, had been denied a job at various colleges and universities in Nevada and appeared to be financially struggling.
Polito arrived at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in a Lexus in 2007 and parked in a parking lot south of the business school about 15 minutes before the shooting, according to Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill. After leaving the car, he placed magazines stuffed in his waistband and entered the business school at 11:33 a.m. The first reports of the shooting came in at 11:45 a.m.
The first university officer arrived within 78 seconds of the shooting report, and university and city police headed to the building. Gunfire erupted near the main entrance as Dramm and Garcia saw Polito leaving the building. The officers killed the shooter about 10 minutes after the shooting spree began.
Patricia Navarro-Velez (39 years old), who was studying accounting and specializing in research on security disclosures and data analysis; Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang (64 years old), an associate professor in the Department of Business Administration, Entrepreneurship, and Technology; and Naoko Takemaru (69 years old), an associate professor of Japan Studies, who had an office on the third floor of the business school, were all killed. Takemaru supervised the Japan Studies program at the university.
It is unclear how many shots Polito fired, but the sheriff said that Polito brought more than 150 rounds of ammunition with him.
Given the number of rounds, McMahill said Polito may have intended to shoot at the student union adjacent to the business school, where students were gathered eating and socializing.
Polito also carried what McMahill described as a “target list” of faculty members from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and East Carolina University in North Carolina, where Polito taught in the business school from 2001 to 2017.
He resigned from East Carolina University as an associate professor with a contracted position, according to the university.
Polito’s employment record at East Carolina did not include any disciplinary actions or red flags, according to a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation. The official was not authorized to release information publicly and spoke to the campus police-affiliated news agency on the condition of anonymity.
The shooter had been living in the Las Vegas area since at least 2018.
Roseman University of Health Sciences in Henderson, Nevada, stated that Polito had a contract as an adjunct faculty member and taught courses in the school’s MBA program from October 2018 until June 2022. He left when the program was discontinued, according to Jason Roth, a spokesperson for the school.
Paul Whittington, a former student at East Carolina, said Polito often talked about his regular trips to Las Vegas. He also seemed obsessed with anonymous student reviews, Whittington said. “He always talked about the negative feedback he received,” Whittington, who took an introductory course in operations management with Polito in 2014, said. “He didn’t get a lot of it, but there’s always one student in every class, or at least one student in every class, who gives a negative evaluation.”
Contributed
In this report, correspondents for the Associated Press include Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Ken Ritter in Las Vegas; Terry Tang and Anita Snow in Phoenix; and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles.
Source: https://apnews.com/article/campus-shooting-las-vegas-unlv-8f75fc1c5f863f5d928c48aa1189aedf
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