Three people were killed and one person was wounded in a shooting on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus Wednesday afternoon, police said. The suspect was killed by officers who rushed to the scene at UNLV and there was no ongoing threat to the community, police said later on Wednesday.
Two law enforcement sources told CBS News the gunman, who they described as a white male in his sixties, was a former college professor who had previously taught in Georgia and North Carolina.
Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said at a Wednesday evening news conference that police know the identity of the suspect but would not release his name until the families of the victims are notified. But CBS Las Vegas affiliate KLAS-TV reports that its sources identified him as Anthony “Tony” Polito. The sources said Polito recently applied for a job at the university but didn’t get it. He may have also had a connection to a person who works on campus, KLAS sources said.
Polito was an assistant professor in the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management in the College of Business, East Carolina University, the university confirmed to CBS News. He resigned his tenured associate professor position in 2017. He received a Ph.D. in Business Administration in 2002 from the University of Georgia and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in 1991.
McMahill had said earlier in the day that police did not know the suspect’s motive.
The first call about the active shooter came at about 11:45 a.m. local time, after which metropolitan and university police immediately responded, shooting and killing the suspect outside of Beam Hall, McMahill said. The shooting originated on the fourth floor of the building.
In addition to the three people killed, one person was taken to an area hospital with a gunshot wound. The person was in stable condition, McMahill said. Four other people were hospitalized after suffering panic attacks.
McMahill said that, during the attack, there was a gathering outside Beam Hall that included people eating and building Lego sets together. He said there could have been many more deaths if responding officers had not “raced to the campus” within minutes and engaged in armed contact.
“No student should have to fear pursuing their dreams on a college campus,” McMahill said, calling the incident “a heinous, unforgivable crime.”
