Identity of 3rd victim in UNLV shooting released

LAS VEGAS — The Clark County coroner’s office has identified the third professor killed at UNLV on Wednesday as the school’s head of the Japanese Studies Program.

UNLV associate professor Naoko Takemaru, 69, of Las Vegas died of multiple gunshot wounds, the coroner’s office said Friday.

Takemaru oversaw UNLV’s Japanese Studies Program and taught upper-division classes on Japanese language, culture and business, according to the university’s website. She was the author of the 2019 book “Women in the Language and Society of Japan: The Linguistic Roots of Bias.”

She also won the William Morris Award for Excellence in Teaching from UNLV’s College of Liberal Arts.

Takemaru was one of three professors killed by a gunman on UNLV’s campus Wednesday morning. The shooter, 67-year-old Anthony Polito, opened fire in Beam Hall, where the Lee Business School is housed, killing three faculty members and injuring a fourth.

Polito had been turned down multiple times from positions at Nevada universities and had a “target list” in his Henderson apartment, Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said Thursday.

The other professors who were killed have been identified as 39-year-old Patricia Navarro Velez and 64-year-old Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang.