UNLV Shooter Was A B-School Professor & Disgruntled Job-Seeker: Reports

Three are dead and another injured in a shooting on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas

A man who shot and killed three people and wounded another at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas before being killed by police was a semi-retired professor who had applied to work at the school, according to the Associated Press and multiple news outlets.

USA Today and other reports say that the shooter was Anthony Polito, a former professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, and that the 67-year-old Polito had unsuccessfully tried to get a job at UNLV before carrying out the deadly rampage.

Reports say the attack began around 11:45 a.m. Wednesday on the fourth floor of the university’s Frank and Estella Beam Hall, where UNLV’s Lee Business School is housed, before moving downstairs and outside, where police killed the shooter. The fourth person who was injured by the shooter was taken to a hospital with critical injuries and later listed in stable condition.

POLITO CLAIMED TO HAVE DECODED THE ZODIAC KILLER’S LETTERS

Anthony Polito

Further reports Thursday revealed that according to police, Polito mailed letters containing white powder to at least 22 academic institutions before his shooting rampage. The substance contained in the letters had not been identified as of Thursday (December 7) evening.

Polito’s LinkedIn page has been turned into a “Remembrance” page. It lists his most recent teaching experience as East Carolina University, where he taught from 2001 to 2017. His 47-page CV is available online and says he earned a bachelor’s in mathematics/statistics from Radford University, an MBA from Duke Fuqua School of Business, and a Ph.D. in operations management from the University of Georgia Terry College of Business; he lists his research interests as “Deming Theory of Management, Lean Management, Quality Management, Toyota Production System, Process Improvement and the Theory of Constraints. Primary instructional interests: Operations Management, Quality Management, Introductory Statistics.”

Before Polito’s LinkedIn page was frozen, it included a 109-page document full of what were purported to be statements of support from former students. Polito also ran a website in which he theorized about the fate of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 and the identity of the Zodiac Killer. He claimed to have decoded the killer’s infamously complex cipher letters; he also claimed to have been a member of MENSA, the high-IQ society, for 35 years.

‘WE WERE IN UTTER SHOCK’

Lee Business School offers ten undergraduate majors, 14 minors and five graduate degrees, including the MBA and Executive MBA programs. The university has posted a notice on the Lee School page and its main page that “All classes and academic and academic-related activities, as well as UNLV performing arts activities, remain canceled through Sunday, Dec. 10.”

The AP quoted a UNLV professor, Kevaney Martin, who was in her classroom when the shooting began. Another faculty member and three students joined her there, and Martin hid under a desk.

“It was terrifying. I can’t even begin to explain,” AP quotes Martin saying. “I was trying to hold it together for my students, and trying not to cry, but the emotions are something I never want to experience again.”

She said after another professor came in and announced an evacuation, they joined dozens of others leaving the building. She drove her students off campus, and “Once we got away from UNLV, we parked and sat in silence,” she said. “Nobody said a word. We were in utter shock.”