A 29-year-old Salt Lake City man shot himself August 3 in the Salt Lake City Public Library while running from police wanting to question him about an attempted kidnapping five days earlier in a mall parking garage.
A library employee in the reference department recognized Gabrielle Castillo-Arno from a surveillance film aired on TV and notified a security guard who detained him. When police arrived, Castillo-Arno took off down a stairwell to the basement, then pulled out a gun and killed himself.
Library Director Nancy Tessman told American Libraries that police closed the stairwell and main entrance after the 2:50 p.m. shooting; however, she added, the approximately 200 patrons in the library were unaware of the incident because it transpired so quickly.
Tessman praised the staff's resourcefulness, pointing out their heroic actions in a similar incident in March 1994 when a gunman with a bomb took 10 people hostage (American Libraries, April 1994, p. 294–295).
Posted August 10, 1998.