UNLV cancels in-person classes after 3 die in shooting
LAS VEGAS — Students and faculty at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas will not be returning to campus this semester for in-person classes after a gunman killed three professors, the university’s president announced Friday, saying final exams next week have been canceled.
“Given the physical and emotional trauma that the university community has endured, and because of the impact to campus facilities, we have decided that faculty and staff should continue to work remotely through the end of the calendar year,” President Keith Whitfield said in a letter to students and staff.
Police have said that 67-year-old Anthony Polito walked into UNLV’s business school around lunchtime Wednesday and fired shots as he roamed the top three floors, where faculty offices are located.
A fourth victim, a 38-yearold visiting professor, was wounded and hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.
After police killed him in a shootout, Polito was found to be carrying nine magazines for a 9 mm handgun he’d legally purchased last year and a list of targets at the school — although none of those shot was on that list, police said.
The attack at UNLV terrified a city that experienced the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history in October 2017, when a gunman killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 after opening fire from the window of a high-rise suite at Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip, just miles from the UNLV campus.
Whitfield, noting in his letter that students and staff were still grieving, said students will end the semester with the grade they earned based on work completed through Wednesday, the day of the shooting.
Professors can assign an optional online final exam or take-home project to offer students an opportunity to improve their grade, Whitfield said.
Winter commencement ceremonies will go on as scheduled at UNLV Dec. 19 and 20, Whitfield said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden, who was visiting Las Vegas on Friday, was scheduled to meet with Whitfield and other local leaders “to personally share his condolences for those they have lost and reaffirm our support for local law enforcement, UNLV, and the broader community in the wake of this tragedy.”
Police still had no motive for Wednesday’s attack but said the shooter, who was a career college professor, had been previously denied a job at various Nevada colleges and universities before the shooting and appeared to be struggling financially.
Polito arrived at UNLV about 15 minutes before the shooting in a 2007 Lexus that he parked in a lot south of the business school, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said.
Polito got out of the car, placed loaded magazines in his waistband and then entered the business school at 11:33 a.m. The first reports of gunfire came at 11:45 a.m., McMahill said.
University and city police swarmed the building. UNLV police Chief Adam Garcia has said the first university officer arrived at the business school within 78 seconds of the gunfire report.