UNLV shooting: Central Michigan alum was one of murdered victims
ChaJan "Jerry" Chang. Photo credit: UNLV.EDU
FOX 2 (WJBK) - One of the three victims fatally shot in Wednesday's University of Nevada shooting, was ChaJan "Jerry" Chang, who was an alum of Central Michigan University.
Chang, a Ph.D. professor in UNLV's Lee Business School, held degrees from numerous universities. Among them, is a Master's Degree from CMU in 1986, according to his online resume.
The 64-year-old instructor was one of three killed in the campus attack that wounded four people total. The shootings were carried out by a longtime business professor who had been denied applying for a job previously at UNLV, according to the AP, citing a law enforcement source.
Another law enforcement official identified the suspect as Anthony Polito, 67. Both officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information publicly.
Chang had worked at UNLV as a professor since 2001.
Polito was a professor in North Carolina at East Carolina University's Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management from 2001 to 2017, according to a statement released Thursday by the school. He resigned in January 2017 as a tenured associate professor.
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One of Polito’s former students at East Carolina University, Paul Whittington, said Polito went on tangents during class about his many trips to Las Vegas. Polito told his students he visited twice yearly, staying in different hotels and going to various clubs, Whittington said.
"He was really fixated on the city of Las Vegas," Whittington said. "I think he just really liked going there."
Polito also seemed obsessive over anonymous student reviews at the end of each semester, Whittington said. Polito told Whittington’s class that he remembered the faces of students who gave him bad reviews and would express that he was sure who they were and where they sat, pointing at seats in the classroom, Whittington said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Police evacuate students on Harmon Avenue near Maryland Parkway after a shooting on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)