An 18-year-old who wanted to carry out a “Columbine High School massacre-type shooting” killed two people at a public library in Chico, California, before being arrested just minutes after opening fire, police have confirmed.
Bradley Scott Sayer was taken into custody at around 5.18pm on Sunday, approximately six minutes after the first 911 calls flooded in reporting gunshots and screaming inside the Butte County Library’s Chico branch. Officers entered through the front of the building as colleagues set up a perimeter at the rear, and Sayer was apprehended as he fled through the back exit.
Two adults were killed in the attack. A child was also injured and hospitalised, though police confirmed their injuries were not life-threatening. Sayer, a Chico resident, had no prior connection to his victims. He was booked into Butte County Jail on two open counts of murder.
Chico Police Department, working alongside the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, established that Sayer acted alone and that his apparent motivation was a desire to replicate the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, one of the deadliest school shootings in American history. Officers noted that the library was not heavily crowded at the time of the attack, a factor that is likely to have limited the casualty count.
Police confirmed there is no ongoing threat to the public. The identities of the two victims had not been released at the time of publication, pending notification of their next of kin. Officials praised the speed of the law enforcement response for preventing further loss of life.
