Dr. Anthony (Tony) Polito UNLV shooter id as mass shooting suspect and semi retired professor who had recently failed to get job at school. Academic who killed three had thousands of positive reviews from former students.
A gunman suspected of killing three people during Wednesday’s mass shooting at the University of Nevada Las Vegas has been identified as a college professor who had failed to get a job at the school after recently applying for a post.
Dr. Anthony (Tony) Polito, 67, had unsuccessfully applied to a professor position at UNLV before he unleashed his deadly rampage on the Las Vegas campus which left 3 dead, several injured along with one person critically injured according to law enforcement sources.
Polito was armed with a handgun when he stormed the 30K plus student school just before noon, Wednesday and firing off a volley of gunshots – leading to the death of 3 before being killed during a shootout with two police detectives responding to the scene. All three fatalities were thought to be faculty and staff members at the college and potentially targeted because of their status as teachers at the academic institution.
Previously served as an associate professor for 15 years at East Carolina University
The shooting began around 11:45 a.m. on the fourth floor of Beam Hall, UNLV’s business school, near the student union building.
Students and the community were alerted to the emergency by a university post on X that warned: ‘This is not a test. RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.’
Police found three people dead when they arrived at the building. The professor would be taken out within 40 minutes from the time he started his deadly rampage.
A regard of Polito Linkldn’s profile included the academic stating that he is a ‘Semi-Retired University Professor’ based in Las Vegas who had previously had been an undergraduate at Radford University in Virginia where he graduated with a double major in Mathematics and Statistics before earning his masters degree at Duke University and completing 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.
Multiple people killed in a shooting at University of Nevada campus in Las Vegas, NBC reports
Gunman who killed three people at UNLV was a 67-year-old college professor whose job application had just been turned down to work on campus he targeted before dying during his rampage pic.twitter.com/L6uppMes90
— RRN (@RRNmedia) December 7, 2023
‘Dr Polito is an excellent professor.’
The UNLV shooter (Prof. Tony Polito) who was so popular with students had amassed over 1000 positive student testimonials, including the following reviews:
‘I learned a lot in this course. Dr Polito is an excellent professor.’
Wrote another, ‘Dr Polito is amazing, one of the best classes I have taken at ECU.’
And another, ‘Best teacher I have had at ECU, I wish he taught other classes.’
Along with the 3 deceased, four others were hospitalized after suffering panic attacks, with another person critically injured but in stable condition along with two officers being treated for minor injuries incurred 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 mass shooting.
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.
Wednesday’s attack at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas took place just a few miles from the US’s most deadly mass shooting in 2017 that left up to 60 people dead while attending a music festival.
UNLV’s 332-acre (135-hectare) campus is less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) east of the Las Vegas Strip, with no less than 30,000 enrolled students.
