Current:Home > StocksIndexbit-The UNLV shooting victims have been identified. Here's what we know. -Excel Wealth Summit
Indexbit-The UNLV shooting victims have been identified. Here's what we know.
TrendPulse View
Date:2025-04-10 11:12:05
Authorities have Indexbitidentified the three victims killed during Wednesday's shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus.
On Thursday, the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner identified two of the victims as Cha Jan Chang, 64, a professor at the university, and Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, an assistant professor.
Chang, who was also known as Jerry, died from a gunshot wound to the head, and Velez died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds, the medical examiner said.
Authorities have identified the third deceased victim but are waiting to notify the next of kin. According to two law enforcement sources, the third victim was also not a student.
The fourth wounded victim, a 38-year-old male visiting professor, remains in the hospital where his condition has been downgraded to life-threatening, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill said in a news conference Thursday afternoon.
McMahill identified the shooter as 67-year-old Anthony Polito. The shooter was a long-time business professor who sought a professor position at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and was denied. He had applied "numerous times" for jobs at multiple Nevada colleges "and was denied each time," McMahill said.
According to police, the shooter arrived on the UNLV campus around 11:28 a.m. in a 2007 Lexus armed with a Taurus 9 mm handgun he purchased legally in 2022 and 11 magazines, which he had in carriers strapped to his body. McMahill said police are not sure exactly how many rounds were fired, but nine loaded magazines were recovered after the shooting.
Shots were first reported to police around 11:45 a.m., McMahill said.
The shooter exited Beam Hall, the building where the shooting occurred, at 11:55 a.m., when he was shot multiple times by police officers in a gunfight captured on security footage. He died on the scene, police said.
The victims were found on three different floors of Beam Hall. Two of the people who were killed were found on the third floor and the third person who was killed was found on the fourth floor.
The wounded victim is believed to have been shot on the fifth floor, but he managed to get to the ground floor on his own before being taken to the hospital. McMahill said Thursday afternoon that authorities were not sure in what order the victims had been shot.
New details about the shooter emerge
As police continue their investigation, they have learned more about the shooter and his actions leading to the shooting.
The shooter had a previous criminal history of computer trespass out of Virginia in 1992, police said.
On the morning of the shooting, he visited a post office in Henderson, Nevada, and sent 22 letters to various university personnel across the country with no return address, police said.
Police said they do not know the contents of those letters and are working with the postal inspector and federal partners to process them. One of the letters was found and when authorities opened it they found a white powder, McMahill said. The powder was found to be "harmless," the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said later Thursday night.
A search warrant was executed at the shooter's Henderson residence, where police recovered multiple items, including a chair with an arrow pointing down to a document that was similar to a will, several computers and hard drive components, as well as ammunition consistent with cartridge cases found at UNLV and a box for a handgun consistent with the one the shooter used, police said.
The shooter also had a list of people he was seeking on the UNLV campus and Eastern Carolina University, police said. None of the people who were shot were on the list, McMahill said in a statement Thursday night.
Police determined the shooter had money issues, and he even had an eviction notice taped to his front door in Henderson.
Police said they believe the shooter acted alone.
Pat Milton and Andy Triay contributed reporting.
veryGood! (6963)
Related
- Small twin
- 'Out of the norm': Experts urge caution after deadly heat wave scorches West Coast
- Attention BookTok: Emily Henry's Funny Story Is Getting the Movie Treatment
- As climate change alters lakes, tribes and conservationists fight for the future of spearfishing
- Meta donates $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund
- The Daily Money: Temp jobs in jeopardy
- Brett Favre is asking an appeals court to reinstate his defamation lawsuit against Shannon Sharpe
- Massive dinosaur skeleton from Wyoming on display in Denmark – after briefly being lost in transit
- How to watch the 'Blue Bloods' Season 14 finale: Final episode premiere date, cast
- French airport worker unions call for strike right before Paris Olympics
Ranking
- EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
- The Daily Money: Good tidings for home buyers
- Cassie’s Lawyer Slams Sean Diddy Combs’ Recent Outing With Scathing Message
- Melissa Etheridge connects with incarcerated women in new docuseries ‘I’m Not Broken’
- The 401(k) millionaires club keeps growing. We'll tell you how to join.
- Doug Sheehan, 'Clueless' actor and soap opera star, dies at 75
- Joe Bonsall, Oak Ridge Boys singer, dies at 76 from ALS complications
- Channing Tatum Reveals the Moment He Realized He Needed Fiancée Zoë Kravitz
Recommendation
Rylee Arnold Shares a Long
Alabama lawmaker arrested on forgery charges
The inspiring truth behind the movie 'Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot'
Behind Upper Midwest tribal spearfishing is a long and violent history of denied treaty rights
This was the average Social Security benefit in 2004, and here's what it is now
Sex and the City Star John Corbett Shares Regret Over “Unfulfilling” Acting Career
Why 'Bachelorette' Jenn Tran kissed only one man during premiere: 'It's OK to just say no'
Former US Sen. Jim Inhofe, defense hawk who called human-caused climate change a ‘hoax,’ dies at 89