UNLV shooter Anthony Polito is shown in bodycam footage walking out of the building housing the business school after he fatally shot three professors and injured a fourth person before being killed in a shootout with police outside the building. Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Via AP

Police Mistook UNLV Shooter for Bystander During Deadly Shooting

Frantic search for suspect and victims led to confusion, according to body camera footage and police accounts

LAS VEGAS, United States –

Police officers responding to a deadly shooting earlier this month inside the business school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, mistook the gunman for a bystander and urged him to get out of the building amid the frantic search for the suspect and victims, according to body camera footage and police accounts.

The incident occurred on December 6 when three professors were killed and a fourth was injured in the five-story business school on the 30,000-student campus.

The shooter, identified as 67-year-old Anthony Polito, was captured on body camera footage for a few moments. The video provides a glimpse of the suspect inside the building after opening fire on the top floors of the business school.

During the shooting, students and staff were present in a large courtyard just outside the business school, where they were having lunch and playing games.

In the footage, Polito can be seen wearing a long black trench coat over a white shirt, calmly moving through the first floor of the business school while officers swarmed the building. At that time, there was no indication that he was armed.

The officers shouted, “Get out! Get out!” at Polito, gesturing towards an exit, as they continued along the walkway on the second-floor overlooking the ground floor.

Clark County Undersheriff Andrew Walsh stated that it was apparent that the two officers did not know they had encountered the gunman inside the building.

About a minute later, Polito exited the building, pulled out his weapon, and engaged in a shootout with university police officers. He was subsequently killed, and no one outside the building was harmed.

The body camera footage released did not include the shootout, but a previously released short video showed Polito descending a set of stairs outside the business school.

Authorities have not specified a motive for the shooting, but they revealed that Polito was facing financial troubles and had been rejected for a teaching job at UNLV and other Nevada schools. He had previously held a tenured position at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

The three professors killed at UNLV were Naoko Takemaru, 69, an author and associate professor of Japanese studies; Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64, an associate professor in the Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology department; and Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, an accounting professor specializing in research on cybersecurity disclosures and data analytics.

The wounded victim, a 38-year-old visiting professor, has not been identified.

Police announced that more body camera footage will be released in the coming weeks.

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