UNLV professor killed in mass shooting lets burglars target Las Vegas home
The thieves added to the pain for those who loved and admired Naoko Takemaru, one of three professors killed in the Dec. 6 mass shooting at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Three people broke into Takemaru's Las Vegas home on Dec. 26, according to KLAS-TV/Las Vegas, which received a police report Tuesday about the upsetting incident.
The thieves apparently knew that since Takemaru, 69, lives alone, no one at home would stop them.
One of Takemaru's neighbors reportedly "tried" to stop her. She called 9-1-1 when she saw an unidentified woman leaving the vacant building with several items in her hand. However, the woman's face and the faces of the two men waiting in the getaway car were obscured.
When police arrived in Las Vegas, they found the house ransacked, documents show. However, despite a separate search of her home in the days after the massacre, she had no idea what had been stolen. An officer noted in the report that flowers were left outside the home.
The police said they have now protected Takemaru's former residence and hope it will be better than when they last left it.
Revenge Killing
The gunman, Tony Polito, used a legally purchased Taurus 9mm handgun and an 11-load magazine to kill Takemaru and two other professors, Cha Jan “Jerry” Chang, 64, of Henderson and Patricia Navarro Velez, 39, of Las Vegas.
The 67-year-old former adjunct professor, who had never worked at UNLV, was killed in a shootout with police. He reportedly applied for four UNLV positions in 2019 but was rejected each time.
Takemaru is an associate professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Las Vegas. She is also the author of Women in Japanese Language and Society: The Linguistic Roots of Prejudice (McFarland, 2010).The UNLV Foundation established scholarships in memory of all three victims.
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Source: www.casino.org
