Police responding to a mass shooting at the University of Nevada Las Vegas mistook the crazed gunman for a bystander and urged him to run — just before exchanging gunfire with police outside, newly released body camera footage shows.
“Get out, get out!” a Las Vegas police officer was heard yelling at disgruntled professor Anthony Polito from the school’s second-floor balcony after the gruesome massacre on Dec. 6.
Polito, 67 – wearing a long black trench coat with one hand visible at his side – said nothing as he walked briskly and headed for the door and into his final shootout with police.
The half-second sighting was buried in more than five hours of body camera video released by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department this week from the massacre that left three UNLV professors dead and another injured.
The footage shows police swarming the campus shortly after the shots rang out around 11:45 a.m., combing through stairwells and hallways looking for the active shooter.
“Be careful, be careful,” said a policeman. “Do not rush.
“Watch the door,” he said as they moved down a hallway as an alarm went off in the background. “Keep looking at the door… He’s still active. Be careful. He is still active.”
Las Vegas Metro Police Department officers clearing the UNLV campus during the Dec. 6 mass shooting unwittingly encountered gunman Anthony Polito but mistook him for a member of the public and urged him to leave the building. AP
At one point a policeman reported that “the suspect was down,” but the search of the large building continued, with staff and students periodically found huddled in classrooms.
During one grim exchange, one officer told another, “I’ve got bodies here, like a lot. Every f–king floor.”
Police said three UNLV educators — Naoko Takemaru, 69; Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64; and Patricia Navarro Velez, 39 – were killed during the shooting.
The injured 38-year-old professor has not been identified.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Polito was armed with a 9 mm handgun and nine magazines with more than 150 rounds when he stormed onto the campus.
Antony Polito, 67, a disaffected college professor, killed three educators and wounded another at UNLV on December 6. Anthony Polito / Linkedin Newly released Las Vegas police body cam shows police clearing the UNLV building following the Dec. 6 mass shooting. AP
The shooter had been turned down for a teaching position at the school and had been “struggling financially” — and had a “target list” of UNLV faculty members, WPLG-TV News reported.
County Undersheriff Andrew Walsh admitted to the Associated Press that police had a brush with Polito while searching a campus building but had no way of knowing he was the killer.
“They didn’t have a description of the shooter at that time,” Walsh said. “And they know there are other police sources on the first floor.”
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
