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Sound of UNLV gunshots captured on latest body-cam video

Updated January 18, 2024 - 3:52 pm

The sound of gunshot blasts from a shootout that fatally wounded the man who killed three UNLV professors and wounded a fourth last month was captured on body-cam footage released by Las Vegas police Friday.

The Metropolitan Police Department has so far released 10 videos in batches that captured its officers response to the Dec. 6 shooting.

In the latest video of the UNLV shooting, a shotgun-wielding officer and other officers make their way around the outside of a building, when a barrage of pops sound off nearby.

The officers turn and run back toward the front of Beam Hall where Anthony Polito, 67, was gunned down by UNLV police outside the business school.

“Go, go, go,” the officer in the video shouts. “They got him?”

Someone on his radio announces that “We got one down right now.”

Police blacked out the part of the video where police said Polito was fatally wounded.

An off-camera Metro officer stated that “We got the shooter, he’s down, coming in, stack up on me.”

A police dog is heard barking in the background as the first officer says that he has a shotgun pointed at Polito.

The officers discuss handcuffing the gunman.

The rest of the video is similar to the previous videos released by the department, including footage released earlier this week in which officers make their way through Beam Hall and evacuate the building amid the sound of a loud, blaring emergency alarm.

Polito’s victims inside Beam Hall were Patricia Navarro Velez, 39; Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64; Naoko Takemaru, 69, and a fourth professor who suffered life-threatening injuries.

Police have said Polito, a career professor, had been turned down by UNLV and other Nevada higher education institutions, adding that he had been struggling financially in the lead-up to the shooting.

Despite those revelations, authorities have not declared a possible motive. Metro and UNLV said they would publicly release their findings when they complete their investigations.

UNLV President Keith Whitfield told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the surviving professor, who continues to recover, wishes to remain anonymous.

All faculty and staff returned to campus this week for the first time since the shooting as UNLV prepares to welcome students for the spring semester that starts next week.

A previous version of this story misstated the duration of the shooting.

Staff reporter David Wilson contributed to this report. Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at rtorres@reviewjournal.com.

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