The two people killed in a shooting at the Butte County Library in Chico on Monday were identified, as officials released new details about the shooting response and the alleged 18-year-old attacker’s motivations.
The Chico police chief on Tuesday identified Robert Johnson, 74, and Jacob Hull, 46, as having died in the shooting. Johnson was from Orland, California, and Hull, who went by his middle name Cody, was from Chico.
A girl who was with Hull was injured by broken glass during the shooting and has been released from the hospital.
Chico Police Chief Billy Aldridge broke down the response time to the second, saying the first 911 call came in at 5:12 p.m. Screaming and gunshots could be overheard by dispatchers.
Officers arrived at the scene at 5:14 p.m. for a response time of less than two minutes, Aldridge said.
Arriving officers entered the building through the front doors while the suspect exited from the back, where a perimeter had already been established, police said.
The alleged gunman was then taken into custody at 5:16 p.m.
“That’s absolutely amazing,” Aldridge said.
Police identified the alleged shooter as Bradley Scott Sayer, of Chico. He was booked into the Butte County Jail and is expected to face two first-degree murder charges, Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey said on Tuesday. He added that attempted murder charges are also being examined.
Authorities believe the shooter acted alone. Police said there is no indication that Sayer knew any of the three people hit by gunfire, but they also stated that Sayer’s “motivation appears to be founded in a desire to commit a Columbine High School massacre type of shooting.”
Sid Patel, the FBI special agent in charge for the Sacramento field office, said that Sayer had recently graduated from Chico High School and split his time living between his mother and father’s homes.
He had done a walkthrough at the library before the shooting and later retrieved a shotgun from his vehicle that was used in the attack. He was wearing a white T-shirt with writing from a marker on it that read “natural selection,” in a reference to one of the Columbine shooters, Patel said.
The shotgun was later recovered from the library, and two additional firearms were found in his vehicle, the Chico police chief said.
Officials also said Tuesday that one of the victims who died was shot at the entrance to the library and the other in another part of the building.
Eight total rounds were fired.
There was no security at the library at the time of the shooting. Security personnel are now being brought to each location in the Butte County library system, an official said.
The shooting remains under investigation.
Anyone with information related to the shooting is asked to contact the Chico Police Department at 530-897-4911.
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