Renjishino, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Three people were killed and one injured at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, United States of America, when a gunman went on a rampage on Wednesday.
The university was a short distance from the gambling hub’s tourist-packed Strip.
“Three of the victims are confirmed deceased,” Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill told a press conference.
He said a fourth victim had been critically injured by the shooting but that condition later upgraded to stable.
The identity of the shooter was not immediately released, but CNN and the Los Angeles Times, quoting law enforcement sources, said he was a 67-year-old career college professor with links to schools in Georgia and North Carolina.
It remains unclear what affiliation he had with the Nevada university where the shooting took place.
US President Joe Biden in a statement decried the latest “horrific act of gun violence” to terrorize a college campus.
Police responded within minutes to reports of an active shooter at 11:45 am (1945 GMT), McMahill told a press conference.
Two officers “immediately engaged the suspect in a shootout” and the suspect “was struck and is deceased at this time,” said university police chief Adam Garcia.
The incident began as an outdoor gathering of students was taking place.
“Students were playing games and eating food, there were tables set up for them to build Legos,” said McMahill.
“If it hadn’t been for the heroic actions of one of those police officers who responded, there could have been countless additional lives taken.”
Police did not provide any further information on the identities of the victims or gunman, and are in the process of notifying next-of-kin.
One woman told local broadcaster KVVU that she had heard a series of loud noises and fled into a building on the campus, from which she was later evacuated by police.
“I was just having breakfast and then I heard three, like, loud booms,” she told the station.
“Then two more, and then police showed up there and ran inside… but then after two minutes boom, boom, boom, more shots. So I ran into a basement, and then we were in the basement for 20 minutes.”
Officers were continuing to search the campus, which will remain closed through Friday, but “there is no more ongoing threat to our community,” the sheriff said.
Mass shootings are common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people, and where attempts to clamp down on their spread are always met with stiff resistance.
The country has recorded over 600 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nongovernmental organization that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.
