UPDATE 12/7/23 9:01 a.m.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Terrified students and professors cowered in classrooms and dorms as a gunman roamed the floors of a University of Nevada, Las Vegas building, killing three people and critically wounding a fourth before dying in a shootout with police.
The gunman in Wednesday’s shooting was a professor who had unsuccessfully sought a job at the school, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press. He previously worked at East Carolina University in North Carolina, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information publicly.
Another law enforcement official identified the suspect as Anthony Polito, 67. Investigators searched an apartment in Henderson, Nevada, late Wednesday as part of the investigation and retrieved several electronic devices, including Polito’s cellphone, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
12/6/23 6:55 p.m.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three people were fatally shot Wednesday and a fourth person critically wounded in an attack on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, police said. The suspected shooter also was found dead.
The attack just before noon sent police swarming onto the campus, which is just a couple of miles from the world-famous Las Vegas Strip while students barricaded themselves in classrooms. Authorities gave the all-clear about 40 minutes after the first report of an active shooter.
Police haven’t released the identity of the shooter or the motive for the attack. The shootings took place in a city still scarred by an October 2017 attack by a gunman at the Mandalay Bay casino that killed 60 people and wounded hundreds more.
UPDATE 12/6/23 3:55 p.m.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police said a suspect was found dead Wednesday as officers responded what officials of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, called a “confirmed active shooter” on campus.
The university said on X, formerly Twitter, the shooter was at the Beam Hall, Frank and Estella Building, home of UNLV’s Lee Business School, and that police were responding to an additional report of shots fired at the nearby student union.
Las Vegas police posted on X that a suspect “has been located and is deceased” about 40 minutes after the initial alert was posted.
“This is not a test,” the university wrote. “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.”
The shooting occurred in a city still scarred by one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history, the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas, in which 60 were killed and hundreds more wounded.
12/6/23 3:30 p.m.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police officers were responding Wednesday to a “confirmed active shooter” in a building at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the university announced in a post on the social media platform X.
“This is not a test,” the university wrote. “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.”
Las Vegas police said in a separate post on X that there appeared to be multiple victims.
The university said the shooter was at the Beam Hall, Frank and Estella Building, home of UNLV’s Lee Business School, which sits near the student union.
The shooting occurred in a city still scarred by one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history, the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas, in which 60 were killed and hundreds more wounded.