Police report on UNLV shooting: Gunman’s life ‘had gone progressively downhill’

The UNLV shooter was possibly “depressed” and likely set out on a “suicide mission,” according to a final report released by Las Vegas police on Friday. The 256-page document detailed the Metropolitan Police Department’s investigation into the 2023 shooting that killed three, offering insight into potential motives, the first-hand experiences of victims, and more.

Metro said in a news release on Friday that its Homicide Section had investigated the deaths of Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, Jerry Cha-Jan Chang, 64, and Naoko Takemaru, 69. All were professors at the university.

A fourth victim, Daraboth “Bot” Rith, listed as a “visiting assistant professor,” was also named in the report. In September, Rith, who was shot ten times, shared the story of how he survived.

On Dec. 6, 2023, Anthony Polito, 67, entered the UNLV campus and opened fire inside Frank and Estella Beam Hall.

University Police Services and Metro were among the first responders, according to the release. As Polito exited Beam Hall, two university police officers engaged him in a gunfight. Polito died on the scene.

During the initial investigation, police found laminated cards believed to be “hit lists” belonging to Polito. These cards included photos, names, and room numbers of professors and faculty members at UNLV, according to the final report, though none of the shooting victims appeared among them. One of the cards also listed the information of faculty members at East Carolina University, where Polito formerly worked.

‘Frustration with lack of employment in Vegas’

Polito was a business professor whose career was described as “fairly successful” until he was denied tenure for “failing to publish journals,” police said.

In 2017, a student of Polito filed a sexual harassment complaint, the report detailed, and days later, Polito resigned and moved to Las Vegas.

Officials said that Polito applied to UNLV four times but was never interviewed. Polito also applied for other positions within the Nevada System of Higher Education and was rejected.

“It appeared Polito’s life had gone progressively downhill. Although there was no evidence of any serious prior mental health conditions, it is possible that Polito may have been depressed and/or angry due to his unemployment, the success of others who had achieved goals he believed he deserved, and his poor financial situation,” the report read.

Polito was also late on rent and owed $75,000 in credit card debt and $142,000 in student loans at the time of his death, according to police.

The final report said that it was “possible that Polito neither had the funds nor patience to return to” East Carolina to confront or kill anyone listed on his laminated cards.

Obsessive behavior

Polito displayed obsessive behavior, said police, adding that he meticulously organized his daily activities as well as gun accessories, ammunition, and women’s dresses that he owned.

The report said that while searching Polito’s apartment, police found numerous women’s dresses of various styles and sizes hanging in his office closet. Each dress was tagged with a size label on its hanger.

“These dresses were not worn by Polito since he was much larger than any sizes present,” the report read, “It appeared that Polito had women, likely prostitutes, wear these dresses to entertain him.”

Police also said that Polito had no documented social life aside from using “sugar daddy and swinger-type websites” and preferred strippers and escorts over traditional dating, as indicated by the digital evidence he left behind.

The Review-Journal previously reported that a lab test found the painkiller oxycodone and tadalafil, which treats erectile dysfunction, in Polito’s bloodstream, according to an autopsy report.

Interviews with witnesses

The final report also included more than a dozen interviews with those who interacted with Polito before the shooting and those who were in the building during it. UNLV accounting department employee Jacqueline Garcia Gonzalez was among them.

While in her office inside Beam Hall the morning of Dec. 6, Garcia Gonzalez said, she heard gunshots “right outside” her office, along with screams, according to the report.

Next, she said she “ran to her door” before closing and locking it. When she peered out the door while closing it, she said she saw the “back of who she believed was the shooter.”

Once she locked the door, she said she hid under the desk and remained in the office until police began to sweep through her floor about two hours later, Garcia Gonzalez’s interview with police said.

The report also said that, while meandering through Beam Hall, Polito entered the office of William “Gerry” Sanders, dean of UNLV’s Lee Business School. According to the report, Sanders was on Polito’s list. However, during the attack, he was in a meeting at UNLV’s Richard Tam Alumni Center.

When police later combed through Sanders’ office in Beam Hall, they found evidence of shots that had been fired, including two that went through the back of the dean’s desk chair.

Motives alluded to in letter

Police said that a letter authored by Polito and included at the end of the report suggested that he viewed higher education, which he had once held in high regard, as being in decline. “This is believed to be part of his motivation for the attack at UNLV,” the report said.

“Most faculty really are not that smart. In reality, most of them are merely average or slight above-average in intelligence. Higher education is NOT an abundance of intelligence, it is an abundance of EGOs,” said Polito in a document titled “ContentofEnvelope” that police found on his computer.

Police said that they believed Polito targeted UNLV because it symbolized an institution, was close to home, and because he was not hired when he applied there.

The report also said the department did not identify why Polito chose to shoot Navarro-Velez, Takemaru, Chang or Rith.

“None of them had any known affiliation with Polito in any way, and it is very possible that they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” police said, adding that racism was unfounded as a motive.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com. Contact Bryan Horwath at bhorwath@reviewjournal.com.