Las Vegas campus gunman described as struggling academic with 'target list'

Law enforcement officers head into UNLV campus after reports of an active shooter in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. December 6, 2023. Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via REUTERS

(Reuters) -The gunman who killed three professors and wounded one at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was a financially struggling academic whose job applications were rejected by several higher-education institutions in Nevada, police said on Thursday.

Anthony James Polito, 67, also had mailed nearly two dozen suspicious letters to faculty at universities across the country and had prepared a "target list" of people at both UNLV and a North Carolina university where he once worked, police said.