Motive unknown as three die in LDS library shooting
By Paul Foy
Associated Press writer
A 71-year-old man with a history of schizophrenia calmly walked into the LDS Church's Family History Library on Thursday and methodically began shooting people with a small-caliber handgun.
Before it was over, the gunman had killed a church
security guard and a female library patron, wounded five others, including a police officer, and was himself fatally shot by police.
The man, wearing a long jacket, cap and baggy pants, was identified by police as Sergei Babarin of Central City, a married man with children who had a criminal record. Neighbors said he was a Russian native often frustrated by his broken English.
"He is apparently schizophrenic and hasn't been taking his medication," Mayor Deedee Corradini said at a late-afternoon news conference. "He didn't say anything. He just came in and started shooting people," said Margaret Kane, who was at the world's largest genealogical library with her husband at 10:30 a.m.when the man opened fire at people in the lobby.
"He just looked intent on what he was doing. He came to do what he was doing," said Kane, who huddled under a desk in the first floor research area as the man roamed the lobby and adjacent classrooms, seemingly firing at random.
"I did not hear him say anything. He didn't call out, no names or anything. He just kept his hand held out pointing at people," said Kane, from Olympia, Wash. The gunman reloaded and continued firing, she said.
Police Chief Ruben Ortega said the first officers arrived two minutes after a 10:32 a.m. emergency call and soon were involved in a gun battle with Babarin. He barricaded himself in an office and again exchanged gunfire with officers.
"That's when he was mortally wounded," Ortega said.
According to neighbors, Babarin was a native of Russia who spoke very little English and had occasional run-ins with them. "He would get frustrated sometimes because he couldn't communicate," said Diane L'Etoile, manager of the senior citizens' building where Babarin lived with his wife for the past nine years.
L'Etoile said she and the building's 107 residents were "kind of shook up" over the incident. No one there knew Babarin as schizophrenic, she said. It was not immediately known if he was a U.S. citizen.
By late afternoon, police dismissed their earlier reports that two other men tied to the gunman had been detained. They also said the gunman apparently had no connection to a yellow moving truck parked three blocks from the library and found to contain two 55-gallon drums of gasoline.
The truck owner, who had been at the library earlier Thursday and argued with an employee, was questioned at length, said Ortega, but apparently was not involved in the shootings.
At one point police blew a hole in the side of the truck to inspect the interior.
Ortega said Babarin was arrested and charged with assault and carrying a concealed weapon after a 1995 fight at the ZCMI department store in downtown Salt Lake. He was carrying a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol then, but it was not clear the gun was the same one he used Thursday.
Babarin's wife told investigators he had not been taking his medication for schizophrenia and each day would walk a dozen-odd blocks from their home to the State Capitol and to Temple Square, Ortega said.
Kane said she was "scared to death" when Babarin was firing his .22-caliber automatic, emptying one clip and part of another. "We all read about these people who go around shooting. There's nothing you can do. You just try to make yourself as small as possible."
Lyman Platt, a genealogist, said the gunman entered the library and quickly fired off a dozen rounds.
"He came in the lobby and shot a lady in the head and two or three other men," Platt said.
Said Jacqueline Nelson, a researcher who was working on the first floor: "We heard a pop and somebody said 'Everybody get down.' There were 10 or 12 pops and somebody yelled 'Somebody's shooting!"
Shots were fired as much as 45 minutes after officers arrived on the scene, at first leading police to believe there might be a second gunman.
Seventeen people on the second floor locked themselves inside when the shooting began — Kane was one of them — and were evacuated unharmed early in the afternoon as SWAT teams combed the building.
Babarin, who had exchanged gunfire with police, was taken out of the building to an ambulance parked in front of a nearby restaurant about 90 minutes after the first shots were fired.
Paramedics at first believed he might be wired with an explosive and the area was evacuated. Police Sgt. Ken Hanson said he died in the ambulance and was not carrying explosives.
The five wounded included SWAT team officer Brad Davis, who was treated at the scene for a grazing hand wound described by police as "very, very minor."
The church security guard, who was armed but had no chance to shoot back, was identified as Donald Thomas, 62, West Jordan, who was shot in the chest and died at LDS Hospital. The second fatal victim was identified by television reports as Patricia Irene Frengs, 55, Pleasant Hill, Calif.
Theda Weston, 71, of Laketown, Rich County, was in serious condition at University of Utah Hospital with a head wound.
Weston's daughter, Chris Webb, 45, also of Laketown, was in fair condition at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the shoulder.
Nellie Leighton, 80, Oakland, Calif., underwent surgery at the same hospital for a gunshot wound to the cheek and was in fair condition.
Police said a 24-year-old woman was in stable condition at another hospital with a bullet wound.
"It's been a tragic day for our city," said Corradini."Our hearts go out to the families."
The library, the largest genealogical library in the world, is directly across the street from Temple Square, site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Salt Lake Temple and Tabernacle. According to a
church Web site, it has more than 2 million rolls of microfilm copies of census and other records from more than 100 countries.
An international genealogical convention had attracted heavy traffic to the library, which has two floors below ground level and three above. Some 250 people — patrons and employees — are in the building on a typical day.
"We very much regret these tragic circumstances," the church's governing First Presidency said in a statement read by Bruce Olsen, managing director of public affairs for the church. "We do not have all of the particulars, but our hearts reach out to the innocent victims of this terrible tragedy and to their families."
The church has been involved in genealogy since its founding nearly 170 years ago. Church officials said the library would not re-open until Monday.
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