Law enforcement officers head into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, campus after reports of an active shooter, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)
LAS VEGAS (AP) – A person opened fire Wednesday on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus, and at least three victims were taken to hospitals, according to police who reported the shooter was found dead.
“Right now, we know there are 3 victims, but unknown extent of the injuries,” Sheriff Kevin McMahill said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “That number could change.”
McMahill did not say whether any victims had been killed.
Police were called about an active shooter on campus at 11:45 a.m. Wednesday, said Adam Garcia, a university police official. He said officers found and “engaged” a suspect, who is now dead. It was not immediately clear how the suspect died.
The university said on X, formerly Twitter, that the shooter was at the Beam Hall, Frank and Estella Building, home of UNLV’s Lee Business School, and that police were responding to an additional report of shots fired at the nearby student union.
Las Vegas police posted on X that a suspect “has been located and is deceased” about 40 minutes after the initial alert was posted.
Students and the community were alerted to the emergency by a university post on X.
“This is not a test,” the university wrote. “RUN-HIDE-FIGHT.”
Student Matthew Felsenfeld said he and about 12 classmates barricaded their door in a building near the student union.
“It’s the moment you call your parents and tell them you love them,” said Felsenfeld, a 21-year-old journalism student.
He said he didn’t hear gunfire or see anyone injured but said he saw out the windows as police staged to enter the neighboring building. a short while later, police came and ushered them out.
Pierre Lescure, a UNLV senior, was riding his bicycle from home to campus for a meeting when he said about 10 police cars drove pass him.
“They drove too fast and there was no ambulance, just cops. It was clearly a shooting,” Lescure said. “It could not be something else.”
An Associated Press reporter saw a team of SWAT officers with FBI insignia move as a group onto campus just before 1 p.m., soon after police reported the dead suspect.
University officials on social media urged anyone on campus to continue sheltering in place, saying: “This remains an active investigation.”
UNLV has more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at its 332-acre campus is less than 2 miles east of the Las Vegas Strip.
The shooting occurred in a city still scarred by one of the worst mass killings in U.S. history, the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas, in which 60 were killed and hundreds more wounded. The UNLV campus is just over three miles from that location.
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Associated Press reporter Russ Bynum contributed to this report from Savannah, Georgia.
