Gunman who killed three in University of Nevada shooting had applied for a job at the school
A gunman who killed three people during a shooting at the University of Nevada was turned down for a job at the school.
A fourth person was critically injured in the shooting in Las Vegas, police have confirmed.
Officers responded to reports of a gunman at the University of Nevada where multiple shots were fired. Police said the gunman was shot dead at the scene by officers.
The gunman opened fire on several floors of the campus’s Beam Hall, a building that houses the business school and other facilities.
The gunman was a professor who had unsuccessfully sought a job at the school, a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation said. He previously worked at East Carolina University in North Carolina, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to release the information publicly.
“According to our investigators at the scene, we have three deceased victims and one additional victim in critical condition at a local hospital,” the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department wrote on social media. Police have not made public the identity of the shooter or the motive for the attack, but said more details would be released later.
Police said the incident occurred at about midday local time (8pm GMT) near Beam Hall. About half an hour later the suspect was located and “neutralised”, officers said.
The University of Nevada said officers had responded to a “confirmed active shooter” in one of its buildings.
“This is not a test,” the university said in a social media post. “Please shelter in place. This remains an active investigation.”
The university told its students to “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.”
The shooting was the latest in a succession of such shootings at American schools and colleges – reverberated across the nation.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, said she was “just” told about the shooting as she was preparing to speak to reporters.
“Obviously, we’re going to continue to monitor what’s currently occurring. I don’t want to get ahead of what local enforcements are probably dealing with at this time,” Ms Jean-Pierre said.
Students caught up in the chaos described sheltering in the student union building after hearing there was a gunman nearby.
“We found out cops were on site and we just sheltered in place until we were evacuated. And it took us about 30 minutes to get us evacuated,” the student, Jessica, told CNN affiliate KVVU.
According to a campus map, the student union is located across the street from the business school, Beam Hall, where she said they heard the active shooting took place.
Another student, who did not give their name, told the network: “They had guns, we all walked out of the building hands up. They evacuated us out of the student union. We walked past one of the windows, the window was shot through, glass everywhere.”
That student said they could hear the gunshots from where they were in the student union.
“About 200 kids all in one space,” she said. “A lot of people were panicking.”
A 2017 shooting on the Las Vegas strip, that targeted the Route 91 Harvest music festival and killed 61 people, is the deadliest mass shooting in US history.