Man kills Citibank worker over $2,500 debt: HCSO

Good afternoon everyone and thank you for being here. I'm fortunate to be joined by Ed Schuyler, part of Citibank's management team that will be available and will be speaking here right after me. Yesterday was extremely chaotic. Chief Deputy DeLoach did a wonderful job of putting out preliminary details. As you can understand, when we have a situation like that, a scene so chaotic, things are very fluid. Details are very fluid, and we put out as many preliminary details to make sure you, the media, us, our community, were being kept informed, as informed as we could be. The employees of the Sheriff's Office did a phenomenal job yesterday. Not only throughout this chaotic scene, but throughout the night, throughout the evening, processing with forensics team throughout the night, where I was excited to be informed this morning that we were able to turn the Citibank campus back over to Citibank leadership early this morning. But the point of today is to fill in a lot more details. The detectives, forensics team did a phenomenal job overnight. So now I'd like to put out additional information, fill in the pieces of the puzzle, a lot of the different details that all of us had questions yesterday and just didn't have not just information but accurate, factual information to be able to put out to the community of how did we get here. Yesterday around 9 a.m., our suspect in this case contacted an attorney's office that is contracted by Citibank for collection. He was upset, irate, because he received a summons to go to court over a delinquent payment of $2,500 that he owed to Citibank. He contacts the attorney's office, and I'm going to read this, so bear with me because I don't want to get this wrong. Unless you want me to go over there with my AR-15, my bulletproof vest, and my insanity, you MF and cancel this court case. Do you understand me? There are only an hour and three minutes away, so the last thing you want to do is F with me. This is our suspect, and verbatim what he said to the attorney's office yesterday morning at 9 a.m. when he received his summons to appear in court, to appear in court for a legitimate debt that he owed, a debt of only $2,500. The attorney's office, and there were a lot of things that went right yesterday. The attorney's office contacts the head of security at Citibank, who happens to be a retired secret service agent that was assigned to the area for most of his career that we have a relationship. Phenomenal individual. He, in his experience, says this is a legitimate threat. We're going to be more proactive. He contacts the Orlando Police Department, where our suspect lives, and says, would you guys mind going out there and doing a welfare check on this individual? This certainly doesn't sound like something any sane person would say. They arrive on scene, Orlando Police Department, and sees that he had already left the scene. His wife, our suspect's wife, who's been extremely cooperative throughout this whole process. Says he left, he didn't say where he was going, just he appeared to be angry, got in his car and left. After Orlando Police Department gives the head of security at Citibank an update, he also takes another precautionary measure. He says, well, let me contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Again, these are where relationships are such a key value. He contacts our commander and deputy division commander of the district that oversees the city-backed campus and says, hey, this is a threat that we got. Thank you for that. We don't know where he's at. We don't know if he attends on following up on that threat. And they immediately say, hey, we'll send a couple deputies over there to make sure we're being proactive. So a supervisor and a deputy sheriff within minutes arrive on scene on campus. The supervisor is in contact with Citibank's security officer and as he's trying to coordinate where exactly they would want him to be. And as he's arriving on scene, the supervisor hears gunshots. The security officer says, courtyard, courtyard, and hangs up the phone. We now know that this suspect crashes through the gate in the courtyard. He exits his vehicle with his rifle. As you can see in the video, gets out of his car, walks towards the first person, member of Citibank that he sees, and he shoots her three times. As he shoots her, his rifle begins to malfunction. This suspect goes back, returns back to his car, retrieves his handgun, walks back over to the victim who's trying to crawl away with her life and executes her. He then, when you look at the next video, as we're following his journey, enters the cafeteria. Now, I want to remind you, it's noon, we're just after noon. It's busy, 3,200, and a campus that holds 5,000 employees, there happens to be with their employee rotation, 3,200 employees on campus. He enters the cafeteria. I want you to see how calm he is acting. He's still trying to work through and figure out his rifle malfunction. He makes his way through the cafeteria. All the employees there heard the gunshots, saw what was happening, and they immediately either ran off campus or went to find some place to hide and secure to try to save their own lives. He comes in through the cafeteria. Now he makes entry into the actual campus. He's actually in the building of Citibank. What he encounters is a security officer who's also the vice president of operations. He's a part of Citibank's security team, who also happens to be a highly trained Marine Corps veteran who says that this is going to end right now. He encounters the suspect. In our scenario yesterday, what you're watching now is our hero, this Citibank employee who runs towards danger. He takes a tactical position in the men's restroom, knowing that he heard the gunshots, he hears the door open, and he sees a suspect coming, and he engages this suspect. He fires rounds, and now he finds himself in a gunfight because the suspect is returning gunfire. He fires some more rounds, and he's able to strike the suspect five times. Our suspect, despite life-saving measures, succumbed to his injuries and lost his life at Tampa General Hospital where he was pronounced deceased. 367. Deputy sheriffs are responding, as in protocol, to an active shooter situation. You drop what you're doing, you run towards wherever the threat of danger is, and you don't stop until you neutralize that threat. At the same time, watching this video, you can see how they're doing a lot of rescuing. It's okay. Come on out. Run towards the parking lot. We had set up a reunification center next door in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel where these employees can contact their family members, let them know they're okay. Some of them even traumatized to the point they didn't want to drive, and their family members drove them home. 367 deputy sheriffs now still have a large task at hand. Now remember, this is very fluid. At this time, we don't know, is this shooter alone? We didn't know the motive that we know today. We didn't have a lot of details, except that we know that we had at least one shooter. So they flood every nook and cranny of this large campus. If you could see the, and I know some of you have showed the plans of this campus. This Citibank campus, this headquarters, is larger than a lot of universities. The fact that these 367 deputy sheriffs, canine deputies who were training down the street, employees like Chief Deputy Losat, who just happened to be in the area, it didn't matter where they were, what they were doing. They dropped what they were doing and fled, knowing that there was danger ahead. There were people who needed to be saved. And without hesitation, along with this supervisor, Who was on the phone with the security officer, heard the gunshots. He's now relaying real time back to us what's happening. Courtyard, entering the cafeteria. Thank you. We believe at least one suspect's down. And we're able to gain this valuable intelligence as we're now trying to deploy resources. Great job at Incident Command yesterday of deploying resources again flooding every square nook and cranny of this campus until everyone was rescued. At one point I was looking at a video as they're clearing the campus and our SWAT team happens to be there and at one point they turn around and the state troopers with them. I'm with you guys let's go. It didn't matter who was there. I got a call from the city of Tampa police chief. Do you need anything? Not at this time. He was sending people that way. Phenomenal job by everyone collaboratively coming together to make sure that this tragic incident wasn't catastrophic. What do I mean by that? Our suspect took one life, and that's one life too many. And our thoughts are with her family. This suspect was armed with 90 rounds of ammunition. As you see in that cafeteria, he was there intent on one purpose, and that purpose was to hunt any human being he could find and kill. Because of the heroic actions of this Citibank security officer, vice president of operations, his reign of terror ended before it even began. I want to identify the suspect in this case, and we'll provide this information to you. Jacob Pearson, 35 years of age, who resides in Orlando, a married man with a seven-year-old child, no criminal record. Our victim, Leanne Selman, 41 years of age, from Palm Harbor, worked at Citibank for nine years. She was a learning advisor for City Security Investigative Services. And I know he doesn't want me to mention his name. Thankfully to Mr. Schuyler, he's given me permission to say his name because the hero in yesterday's event, Security Guard John Fraley, a Marine Corps veteran and a part of the Citibank security team. As I stand here today, my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude. Gratitude for everybody who ran towards danger, the heroic actions that the security guard along with every member of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, our state and federal partners are also showed up at the scene seeing how can I help? What can I do? This is what partnerships and collaboration looks like. This is what training and preparedness looks like. I tell you guys all the time, whether it's a hurricane or an active shooter, it's not if it's when What you see in this video, and as we sit here and announce how yesterday's events unfolded and how catastrophic they potentially could have been, this is what preparedness looks like. When you look at the video and you see the cafeteria and you see that the 3,200 employees, a lot of them were in the courtyard in the cafeteria, I want you to take a look at this. You want to see all their personal belongings that were there, their backpacks. Some of them, their glasses fell off. Some of them ran out of their shoes but they were concerned with one thing and that one thing was saving their own life yesterday. In this video this is what fear looks like. It could have been much worse. That's why I'm beyond grateful for everything that everyone did yesterday to make sure we had such a successful outcome. Yesterday we announced that there were four other people that were transported to the hospital and I wanted to clarify details on that. During the chaos, there was someone who busted their lip. We asked them to go to the hospital. They drove themselves. There was someone else who had a busted lip and some abrasions. We believe they fell down during the mass exit. We asked them. She wanted to drive herself to the hospital. She went to the hospital. There was a pregnant female. We asked her please at our abundance of precaution, please go to the hospital. She went to the hospital. There was one person at Hillsborough County Fire Rescue besides our suspect that they transported and that was an individual, uh, uh, um, um, um, male who was experiencing some chest pains. So again, an abundance of caution. We just wanted to make sure we transported him. So those four people who went to Tampa General Hospital have all been released and have all been cleared. Thank you doesn't seem strong enough today. When you look around and we see active shooter situations around the country and they're always much more catastrophic. And today we're talking about one loss of life and it's one loss of life too many. But to see the potential in this incident that could have been much worse, I stand here very grateful. Mr. Schuyler, I'll turn the podium over to you, sir. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Sheriff Cronus, sir. I'm Ed Skyler, the head of Enterprise Services and Public Affairs at Citigroup. Our CEO, Jane Fraser, and I and others in the management team arrived last night to support our colleagues and express appreciation to those who are helping us through this very difficult time. Our hearts are heavy, but they are also full of gratitude. We are grateful for the actions of our security team, their heroic actions that prevent this tragedy from becoming even worse. We are grateful to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office for their robust response. It was reassuring, it was highly professional, we appreciate it, and we will remember it. We also appreciate the response from the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue and how they helped treat the people that were injured in the evacuation. Today, our focus is on how we can support the family of our fallen colleague, Leanne Selman. She was with Citi. For nine years she worked in human resources. She was valued. She was beloved. She was described as a bright light and her colleagues and all of us are grieving. We are in touch with her family and we ask that you grant them privacy while they grieve. Our focus is also on all our 9500 Tampa colleagues, many of whom were at the site yesterday. Many witnessed the event and all were evacuated as you heard and we're making sure we offer whatever resources we can to support them. It's been a heartbreaking two days. We hope there are better days ahead. But again, I want to express our deep appreciation for Sheriff Chronister, for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, for making sure that our employees are safe and protected. At this time, Mr. Skylar, we'll attempt to answer any questions. Sure. So you may imagine, given the nature of what was described, there are threats that come in frequently. They are all assessed, as you heard from the sheriff, this threat was taken incredibly seriously. The reach out to Orlando PD, our security team was aware of it, was changing their security posture as the event was starting. And as you saw and as you heard, we have highly trained, disciplined people on site that thankfully I think we were able to handle the situation. And prevent what was a tragedy becoming something much, much worse. It is not. Sheriff, I wonder, just if that security guard wasn't there. I think we'd be sitting here talking about a much greater loss of life. I don't like to use the word hero. And the deputy sheriffs who responded, they were brave. They don't like when I call them hero. This hero, this member of the Citibank security team, saved a lot of lives yesterday. Think about this. He only expended 15 rounds. He had 90. He was intent on killing Citibank employees yesterday. This was targeted. He targeted Citibank employees yesterday, holding them responsible for his debt. Well, she was a beloved employee. She's been with us for nine years. Many of us spent time with colleagues of hers today. You could tell the impact she had, not just in her work, but the impact she had at our site and how people enjoy being around her. And this is going to be, this is a very hard loss for all of our colleagues here. She was in human resources and was a learning advisor for the sheriff on that. No, absolutely not. Zero connection. Unfortunately, this is a circumstance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was the first victim that he encountered when he exited his vehicle. They fled, as you could imagine, 3,200 employees, a majority of them on lunch break between the cafeteria and courtyard. She wasn't able to get away quick enough, and she paid with her life, less than a minute. Absolutely phenomenal response. When Mr. Skyler and I were talking about the response, I'm like, it doesn't get any better than a minute. From the time that they see him come in to the time that he stopped, a minute. I'll just refer you to the public record as the sheriff mentioned, there was litigation and those documents are public and I think you can get the details from that filing. Thank you. Digital Cults 4.0 and 7.0, will there be no... We've already started that process. Um, our ceo addressed Tampa colleagues today, um, just gathering with them in person as well. And this is gonna be a process where it goes on. Um, Not just today, but in the near future. And we will find, with some time and perspective, the appropriate way to honor her life and her contributions. One more question? I think given the nature of what's gone on, we will just share that with our employees first before we make that public. Clearly, after having gone through COVID, you can imagine that our virtual capabilities are quite strong. And if we have to rely on those for the near future, we will. We will not be demanding people return to the scene of this incident on Monday or in the very near future. It's really important for us to recognize the traumatic events that our colleagues experienced. To provide support for them and not do anything to exacerbate the trauma that they've experienced. No, no, sir. Not that I was made aware of. No, sir. He happens to be, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Schuyler, he's a vice president of operations who happens to be a part of their highly trained security team. He's an individual that's afforded an opportunity to carry a firearm because the ones who were either previous law enforcement or military and have that training, Citibank empowers them to carry a handgun. That's what I'm saying. He was an employee who didn't have to stop. He could have ran and protected his own life, too. He took up a tactical position when he saw the suspect coming. And made a decision. That decision would have put his own life at risk to stop that shooter from harming anyone else. Alright everyone, have a great day. Stay safe.