UNLV mass shooting suspect ID’d as Anthony Polito, 67, professor who failed to get job at school
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The man suspected of killing three people during a daylight mass shooting at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on Wednesday has been identified as a professor who failed to secure a job at the school.
Anthony Polito, 67, had unsuccessfully applied to a professor position at UNLV before he unleashed his deadly rampage on the Las Vegas campus just before noon, according to ABC News, citing law enforcement sources.
The outlet reported that Polito was armed with a handgun during his massacre and was killed following a shootout with two police detectives responding to the scene.
The shooting began around 11:45 a.m. on the fourth floor of Beam Hall, UNLV’s business school, near the student union building.
Police found three people dead when they arrived at the building.
Potito states he is a “Semi-Retired University Professor” based in Las Vegas and attended undergraduate at Radford University in Virginia where he graduated with a double major in Mathematics and Statistics before he earned his masters degree at Duke University and completed his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia.
He served as an associated professor for 15 and a half years at East Carolina University from Aug. 2001 to Jan. 2017
“The greatest gifts and takeaways I possess from my many years within higher education are the many kind & positive comments students made regarding my instruction disposition toward them,” the LinkedIn account reads.
A fourth person was taken to an area hospital where they are listed as critical but stable condition.
Four others were hospitalized after suffering panic attacks and two officers were treated for minor injuries suffered while clearing buildings, LVMPD police said.
The campus was placed on lockdown almost immediately after the shooting was reported. Police evacuated students and staff on campus “floor by floor, room by room, building by building,” LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a Wednesday evening press briefing.
An apartment in Henderson, Nevada, believed to be Polito’s home, was being searched, as law enforcement officials continued to investigate the shooting while gearing up to work overnight and into the morning hours, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
The suspect’s phone has already been retrieved and detectives are looking for any clues inside the device that could hint at any form of motivation for the killings.
Investigators determined the victims were not students, but instead faculty or staff at the school, which may be investigated as a potential motive into the shooting.
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