Chico Library Shooting Update — Full Press Conference

[0:00] thank you to everyone for being here today obviously this is a very sad day for us in [0:07] this community this community continues to have things that happen not only in chico but in this [0:15] county and so it's just this is horrible to see that we have this tragedy going right now and i [0:22] want to remember the victims and just think about their families for a second so it's just it's just [0:36] super sad and so i have some information i'm going to release today once i'm done i'll announce the [0:45] next speaker and we have several people today i'll just go ahead and recognize them so with us today [0:53] is misty wright she's the buke county director of libraries michael ramsey the county district attorney [1:01] corey honey county sheriff eric grant united states attorney for the eastern district of california [1:08] and sid patel is the special agent charge of the fbi sacramento building office so you'll hear from [1:15] each of these individuals today i'm going to ask that you hold your questions until the end [1:20] i promise we'll get to your questions and i will answer them to the best of my ability [1:25] and if i can't answer them one of the speakers who will speak today will most likely be able to answer [1:31] it for you so yesterday we had an active shooter incident at the butte county library chico branch [1:41] the initial 911 call came in at now i want you to take specific note of the timeline here the initial [1:53] 911 call came in at 5 12 and 58 seconds the call as it was open in our dispatch center the dispatchers [2:05] could overhear what they described as screaming and gunshots several officers were dispatched to a [2:15] potential active shooter incident there based off what our dispatchers were hearing our first officer [2:23] went on scene at 5 14 and 44 seconds so our response time was less than two minutes at 5 16 and 53 seconds [2:38] we had the suspect in custody so from time of initial 911 call to an in custody with our suspect was less [2:47] than four minutes that's absolutely amazing and i want to acknowledge that i absolutely believe that [2:56] this is what mitigated further loss of life to members from our community and i want to recognize [3:05] every one of those first responders that responded and handled this situation so we had multiple 911 [3:15] calls reporting gunshots and screaming from within the county library in chico the suspect exited the [3:21] east side of the library where a perimeter had already been established and was taken into custody [3:25] without incident there was no use of force by any of our officers in dealing with the suspect we have [3:37] two adult victims and i want to acknowledge their names the first is 74 year old robert johnson the second [3:52] is 46 year old jacob hole we have one female juvenile who we will not name who was transported to the [4:02] hospital with a non-life-threatening injury that was fairly minor from what i understand broken glass [4:12] kind of cut her on the side she's since been released from the hospital and is with her family [4:18] all three were patrons of the library they were not employees of any sort our suspect is 18 year old [4:27] bradley scott sayer of chico he has no known connections to any of the victims in the library [4:34] and based on information revealed during the interviews our detectives believe the suspect was [4:42] influenced by the columbine high school shooting back in 1999 in the the scene itself it's described as [4:56] in the general area of the library at the initial entrance point and then further into [5:05] the back side of the library filled that approximately eight total rounds were fired two additional [5:16] firearms were located in the suspect's vehicle which was parked right outside the library one victim [5:24] who was struck at the library entrance and one in the later part of the building we believe that [5:31] this was an isolated incident and there's no known further threat to our community we're still [5:38] trying to determine the source of the firearms but we do believe those were connected to mr sayer just [5:51] want to say that we do not focus or want to focus on the on the individual who is responsible for this [5:58] violence he does not deserve to be recognized at any point so i will not say his name any further in [6:07] moments like these are our focus remains on those who are harmed and the community members whose lives have [6:13] been changed forever today we recognize those victims and honor the bravery of those who responded and [6:21] remain committed to supporting our community through the healing process i could not be more proud of the [6:27] actions displayed by our officers their rapid response sound judgment and unwavering courage brought [6:34] a dangerous situation under control and prevented further violence while our thoughts remain with the [6:41] victims and their families we are grateful for the professionalism and heroism displayed by everyone who [6:48] responded we would like to extend our gratitude to our allied agencies fire ems and public safety [6:56] partners who immediately responded help to coordinate and support were critical in ensuring the safety of [7:03] our community during the incident of those agencies that i want to publicly acknowledge is the butte county [7:11] sheriff's office the butte college police department the california state university chico police department [7:20] california state parks cal fire law enforcement branch the butte county district attorney's office [7:29] the fbi and the department of corrections it's partnerships like these that we rely on this is a [7:40] large community and we can't be everywhere at once so we have to rely on each other and help each other be successful and that's what we did yesterday we helped each other [7:50] at this point i'm going to turn it over to the butte county director of libraries and that is misty wright [8:00] so misty if you could come forward on behalf of everyone at butte county i want to thank law enforcement [8:14] for their swift and selfish actions every day you courageously run towards danger and it is without a [8:20] doubt that yesterday your courage saved lives a library should be a place of joy it should be a place where [8:26] people feel safe and yesterday that sense of safety was shattered we grieve for the innocent victims and [8:39] their loved ones for those who witnessed something no one should ever have to witness and we grieve for [8:45] our staff our patrons and our entire community we acknowledge the fear sadness and heartbreak that so [8:51] many are carrying today in the midst of this tragedy we also witnessed remarkable bravery from our [8:57] library staff who acted on their preparation and training to help patrons and one another the people [9:05] who work in our libraries choose this profession because they care deeply about others they believe [9:10] in service they believe in community they believe that every person who walks through our doors matters [9:16] and yesterday our staff embodied those values their actions reflect the very best of public service [9:21] and the very heart of what libraries represent for that i am profoundly grateful the road ahead will [9:28] not be easy but i believe in the strength of this community because i've seen it firsthand [9:33] and i believe that one day families will walk through these doors again children will gather for [9:37] story time students will find a quiet place to study and friends will meet and neighbors will connect and [9:44] when that day comes the library will once again be what it has always been at its heart a place of [9:50] learning a place of connection and a place of hope as far as library operations the chico branch was [9:57] previously scheduled to close in august temporarily for renovations it will reopen once renovations are [10:04] complete more information on where residents may access their library services in chico will be provided [10:10] soon while we are not aware of any threat to other library branches the county's top priority is to [10:16] ensure that residents and staff feel safe in the library therefore as a precaution we are arranging [10:23] to have security personnel at each location we will notify the public once the other locations are ready [10:29] to open thank you and i'm going to call up mike ramsey district attorney i'm not mike ramsey the district [10:47] attorney of view county i am corey honey the sheriff and coroner of view county as you know from chief [10:54] aldridge's comments yesterday there was an active shooter incident at the chico branch of the butte [11:01] county library the butte county sheriff's office dispatch was monitoring the chico police department [11:06] dispatch and as soon as our dispatchers heard that call being put out to police officers from the city [11:13] of chico we immediately dispatched all available deputy sheriffs from throughout butte county to respond [11:20] to the scene to assist the chico police department in any way that we possibly could as you're also [11:27] aware of the fact that shortly after that scene was secured and it was secured in a remarkably fast [11:36] time frame two individuals were located who had sustained apparent gunshot wounds one of those victims was [11:47] pronounced dead at the scene and as chief aldridge mentioned his name is robert johnson he is 74 years [11:56] of age and he was from orland california there was a second victim of a gunshot wound who sustained [12:05] injury was transported to in low hospital they did their best to provide life-saving treatment regrettably [12:14] he succumbed to his injuries that victim has been identified by my office as jacob huel age 46 [12:23] also of chico and i'll note that the young girl that was sustained minor injuries was with mr huel my [12:33] office will be coordinating autopsies for both of the victims in this case we anticipate that the autopsies [12:41] will take place at our morgue facility in oroville tomorrow our pre preliminary examination indicates [12:50] that the gunshots suffered by both victims are consistent with the kinds of wounds caused by a [12:57] shotgun as you also know from chief aldrich the suspect in this case was quickly and swiftly taken [13:05] into custody by officers from chico police department after which he was later booked into the butte [13:12] county jail where he is being held in isolation of course my office will continue to work cooperatively [13:24] with all of our partners in this endeavor and do whatever we can to assist i want to say there's [13:33] been so much tragedy visited upon the residents of butte county and this incident is of course no [13:40] exception to that my heart goes out to all the members of our community i want to express my very [13:45] sincere condolences to the families and friends of the victims and i also want to acknowledge the heroic [13:53] efforts of our library staff who helped patrons of the library gets into a safe place i'm confident [14:03] that they helped save lives and again i want to recognize all of the law enforcement officers who [14:10] responded to that situation without hesitation and now i would like to introduce our district attorney [14:17] mike ramsey thank you sheriff and i'll echo much of what the sheriff has indicated particularly it was [14:30] referenced the fact that we had law enforcement from all over the county coming in on an active shooter [14:38] situation but after the situation was stabilized we also had a number of those officers stay and do the import [14:50] of investigating this multiple witnesses not only library patrons but the entire neighborhood looking and [15:02] gathering such things as ring cameras uh the flock cameras such that we know and can make a kind of the suspect [15:15] was he did he came in as the sheriff has indicated the weapon that was used was a shotgun shotgun was [15:27] recovered from the floor of the library suspect will appear in view county superior court thursday afternoon [15:39] at 3 p.m the standard arraignment time in our superior court i expect him to be charged with two counts of first [15:49] degree murder we are still examining all of the witnesses reports as to various attempted murder charges [15:59] right now we know that there are charges of the two deceased that unfortunately left lost their lives [16:08] in this matter so told my board of supervisors this morning of course the public wants to know the why [16:16] question and the why question has been alluded to uh by uh chief aldridge is that the suspect was a fan [16:25] and a fan for some time of social media involving columbine type so the kind of school and had unfortunately [16:37] made a deep dive into that social media community and obviously lost his work in that decided yesterday [16:48] to act our society right he will be charged he will be uh as i understand may already have an attorney [17:04] do not know who that is appear in our court at 3 p.m on thursday and now i'd like to introduce [17:14] uh the eric grant who's the united states attorney for the eastern district thank you district attorney [17:27] ramsey my title is a long version of the chief federal prosecutor or the central valley and i'm [17:35] here in a supporting role you're in very good hands with the chico police department the butte county [17:41] sheriff's office and county district attorney's office and on a personal note i want to say i have a [17:47] daughter and son-in-law who live here in chico and so i'm personally grateful for the skill and bravery [17:56] of the chico police department being the citizens of this city and this county safe one of my important [18:04] roles is to support our partners at the federal bureau of investigation the lawyers in my office are [18:13] doing that as we do every day and so i would like to now turn it over to sid patel the special agent in [18:21] charge of the fbi's sacramento field office sid my name is sid patel i'm the special agent in charge [18:33] for the sacramento fbi field office yesterday's violent attack was horrific we've got a tight [18:42] community here in chico and not one person should feel unsafe going to a public benny like a library [18:48] our community and especially those who are grieving the loss of a loved one who stand with you and will [18:59] support you any way we can full force of the fbi is assisting this investigation we've mobilized our [19:09] agents intelligence analysts our professional staff from our sacramento fbi main office but also [19:16] our satellite office we call it the chico resident agency ra we have agents out here as well and intel [19:25] analysts we're partly partnering closely with our local state and federal partners many of that have [19:31] been mentioned but to include the chico police department we've got a great relationship with chico pd [19:38] their lead investigation armed with this uh particular case the butte county sheriff's office the butte [19:45] county da's office atf one of our federal agencies alcohol tobacco farms hsi and the u.s attorney's [19:56] office there are numerous others the fire departments the staff at the library everyone that was part of [20:03] this to try to secure as many safe people as we could during this incident within the first two [20:09] minutes of the first shot chico police officers were on scene so let me go through a chronology [20:14] of a timeline of some of the incidents as we received it as the fbi at 5 12 pm chico police department [20:20] received a report of shots fired within a minute and 40 seconds they responded within four minutes [20:26] the individual was in custody these are unreal times i'll tell you the average time for an active [20:33] shooter scenario is about three to seven minutes so a minute 40 seconds is extremely fast in addition to [20:39] that uh columbine that was 30 to 60 minutes so i mean you guys are in great hands with chico police [20:45] department they did a fantastic job on this response at 5 43 pm uh we learned about the incident [20:52] we start gathering our information towards it i communicated with the chico police chief billy aldridge [20:58] who requested fbi assistance at about 6 18 pm or so these are approximations we had fbi agents on [21:05] the ground here they came from our chico satellite office and then also from our sacramento offices [21:10] at around 7 50 pm our evidence response team that came in to help with the crime scene arrived and [21:16] was on the scene and i'll tell you around 9 30 pm this good several hours after that the subject was [21:23] interviewed by chico police department detectives so let me give you a little background on this [21:29] individual here right let me tell you a little bit about the shooter here the subject bradley scott [21:39] sayer as you know white male 18 years old a graduate from chico high school he graduated on june [21:44] 5th he lived between two locations with his mom and with his dad we believe sarah was looking for a [21:52] confined populated location to attack which he did he did a walk through without a weapon first right [21:59] left his car went inside the library did a walk through then he came back to his vehicle opened his [22:05] trunk and took out his shotgun as he was entering in there was an adult that he shot at that's [22:11] unfortunately deceased now shot him in the leg saw that he was disabled from the shot and then shot him [22:18] in the shot him in the head which was fatal he also injured a young child as was noted earlier [22:26] the young child is i would imagine traumatized but is healing and then he entered multiple shots [22:35] were fired at one point there was another victim that he shot in the head and killed these are [22:42] ruthless acts true evil in my eyes he wore a white t-shirt and the white t-shirt he wrote with black [22:53] handwritten marker natural selection now this natural selection we believe is a reference to eric harris [23:00] who is a columbine shooter who also had a white t-shirt where his says natural selection so let me [23:08] talk to you about some of the ongoing efforts that we have right we have all the digital evidence [23:11] we're continuing to obtain more uh from the subjects home uh looking at other devices and items [23:18] that we've seized and our computer analysis response team is going through those i really [23:25] want to thank our local partners here they've done an amazing job chief aldridge his team the sheriff [23:30] da's office our federal partners it's amazing to see the type of response that they had on this [23:37] you're very fortunate to have a well-trained police department like that you truly are [23:44] as we continue this investigation and to assist chico police department we're still seeking for [23:50] more answers so if you have information about the incident call chico pd or you can feel free to call [23:57] us at 1-800 call fbi or go to tips.fbi.gov and report any information that you have we know this is a [24:04] very strong community please be vigilant be vigilant share information call us call your local pd if you see [24:13] anything that's suspicious don't let this tragedy define what makes chico so great with you thank [24:22] you for your time i'm going to pass it back to the chief thank you to everyone that spoke today i [24:36] appreciate your help the community knows that we have an amazing team of law enforcement agencies fire [24:43] service ums in this community and you know i didn't i felt to recognize the chico fire department [24:51] they responded along with us to this incident we trained together for these types of incidents [24:56] and then our local ambulance crews also so i appreciate your assistance thank you so at this [25:03] point i think we will open it up to questions and out of respect i'm going to allow our local news [25:11] agencies to ask the first questions so uh do we have action news here i'm going to have you ask [25:17] your first question thank you um so are you able to say uh where in the library that the shooting [25:23] happened uh towards the back towards the front outside can you just give the details on sure [25:29] well there's the main entrance from the parking lot right at the front doors there and then as you [25:35] enter into the library just toward the back of it from the second incident chief aldridge when law [25:45] enforcement says that they did their intel and found out that the suspect was inspired by the columbine [25:51] shooting um can you elaborate maybe on specifically uh what law enforcement did to study on that uh did [25:59] they search his social media what did they find in regards to stuff that he was in possession maybe [26:04] the vehicle or just in general searching on social media on his phone things of that nature yeah i think [26:09] the first clue was his shirt with the language that was on there and then some information from the interviews [26:16] but uh the further the further we investigate into this we find further clues that led us to believe [26:25] that was the case so simply you know like i said the shirt that uh that sid was talking about was a [26:34] clue and then some of the stuff that he told us during the process do you know if he said anything [26:40] when he entered the library of any individuals in the library i don't know that uh claudia brancart [26:48] with north state public radio uh what security services were in place at the library uh i will [26:56] turn that over to um misty wright to answer i'm not familiar with it so misty come up um so currently [27:09] at the chico library um our only security services were a mobile patrol um we have never [27:16] seen a need to have a standing guard at the chico library um and it's um guard security that we work with [27:24] okay sorry can you elaborate what you mean by the control the mobile patrol they they come by the [27:31] library periodically like check through the parking lot and come to the building just make sure [27:36] everything's okay are they armed i'm actually unsure of that i would imagine so but i'm unclear okay were [27:54] there any other injuries that were treated on scene outside of um i'm not i'm not sure that we had further [28:05] injuries no just the the three that we've talked about um if i let you ask a question let me jump to [28:16] the next person um will the new person be charged federally i'm sorry will he be charged federally yes [28:22] because the federal government is involved are they thinking about charging him for this as well [28:26] uh well there has to be certain criteria that's met for that and right now we're charging him locally [28:32] uh in view county um under state crimes not federal crimes thank you from sam with abc 10 we spoke to [28:41] a few different people today that were there and witnessed this firsthand happening and also friends [28:46] of one of the victims and they tell us that one of the victims actually was trying to help um save some [28:53] you know the little girl that was injured and another person told us that they were also um trying to [28:59] take people into a bathroom is it because of these brave people and quick actions that [29:06] that there were not any more victims than what there were well i can't corroborate that story in terms of [29:13] shielding the small child or anything like that but i do know that you know the staff did help to [29:18] move people to safety as quick as they could so i would assume that that helped to mitigate further [29:24] loss of life or injury um you know along with the quick response of law enforcement yeah [29:33] as to how many of the library uh i can have misty come back up and answer that maybe i don't know if [29:39] she knows no i don't know no um hold on let me know no estimate are each of the individuals who are [29:49] in the library uh receiving their own attempted murder or sorry is he receiving the return for [29:56] everybody in the library no none at this point and as the d.a um alluded to we're going to be doing [30:01] some further investigation on that talking to the witnesses in depth uh to get more information to [30:06] see if there's uh elements of the crime that are met for the district district attorney to to follow [30:13] further charges yeah and come back to you thank you uh do you know how he was able to get a gun was it [30:23] registered to him or his family and as you just mentioned there's a few different firearms that [30:27] were found yeah uh i mean there were the guns that he has were registered um in the family name [30:38] they weren't to someone else they were within the family the suspect arrived at the library to the [30:50] purchase car in front of the library but do you know approximately when he actually arrived at the [30:55] library um i don't think we have that time arrival time we just have our response time from when we [31:02] received the first call that was that 512 time and how many 911 calls just several i don't know the exact [31:19] number um through you guys investigation has he had any remorse for any of this i'm not going to speak [31:30] to how the interview went at this point because it's so early on in the investigation chief i know you [31:38] mentioned that this is an isolated incident um with summer hitting its peak right now in the community [31:44] obviously the city of chico and new county for that matter very tight-knit communities there's a lot [31:48] of events going on uh what would you say to a lot of people on social media right now and amongst the [31:53] community who might be a little nervous of going to these events and maybe bringing their family their [31:57] kids out there what would you say those individuals i i would say that i understand their fear you know [32:03] when you have something like this happen in the community it makes you second guess you know the [32:06] things you're going to do with your family and and i appreciate that this police department along with our [32:14] partners that we have in this area create an environment where we try to make it as safe as [32:20] we can to both live working and recreate and so i would say i acknowledge your fear i understand it [32:28] but understand we're here 24 7 providing excellent service to this community and as you can tell our [32:37] response times are very quick and so we're going to be available if something happens parents have they [32:45] been questioned yet and did they share any information that they may have known of something [32:50] that is going on i'm going to call up lieutenant ben love who's our investigations lieutenant good [33:03] afternoon they have been interviewed uh but we're not going to speak to what their statements were at this [33:08] time good job thanks i'm wondering if this event has computer in the town people folks and stuff [33:26] considering like do we need to help security at our libraries i'm not going to speak to that either [33:33] i'll let misty maybe answer that question yeah as i said in my statement we are looking to increase [33:43] security at all of our branches i think as at least she said this is an isolated incident but as an abundance of [33:51] caution um we are going to be doing that for now the first time the library today who was trying to [34:04] get aside because he left some of his belongings there the people who did have to leave some of their [34:09] belongings behind how can they go about getting that back and what is expected timeline yeah great [34:15] question now we were talking about that this morning we are going to have someone assigned to that [34:20] if we don't have it already we've already discussed how that's going to go down if people [34:25] are missing items from this incident that were left behind and just tell them to get a hold of us [34:31] at the chico police department um you have something to say about that yeah the district attorney's [34:38] office has a victim assistance program has had for years and they're working with chico police department [34:46] to get those belongings back to the people their experience at that in mass crime type issues okay at this [35:05] time that will conclude our media briefing thank you again to all of our partners who joined us if [35:09] you have not already we do have a press packet by the door feel free to grab that on your way out and [35:15] thank you again thank you again for joining us