Citibank Shooting Highlights a Troubling History of a School Shooting Threat

Citibank Shooting Highlights a Troubling History of School Shooting Threat

This past Wednesday afternoon, 35-year-old Jacob Pearson drove about 90 miles from his home in Orlando to Citibank’s office campus outside Tampa, crashed his car through a gate and into a courtyard where employees were eating lunch, and shot the first person he saw. Her name was Leanne Selman, a 41-year-old who had worked at the company for nine years.

Pearson’s rifle jammed after three shots, so he went back to his car for a handgun, then walked over and killed her as she tried to crawl away, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister. From there he headed into a cafeteria, where Citibank security officer John Fraley, a Marine veteran, shot Pearson five times. Pearson died at the hospital, having fired only 15 of the 90 rounds he brought along.

By most accounts, nobody saw this coming. Pearson’s father told the Associated Press he had never seen any sign that his son was capable of a shooting, and the sheriff said Pearson had no criminal record whatsoever. Keep both of those claims in mind, because we’re going to get back to them in a minute.

What allegedly set Pearson off was that Citibank had taken him to small claims court over $2,556.40 in unpaid credit card debt, and a summons had gone out for a pre-trial conference in February. A few hours before the shooting, he called the law office handling the case and, per the sheriff, demanded they cancel it unless they wanted him showing up with “my AR-15, my bulletproof vest, and my insanity.”

That’s his entire problem. A court date months away over a sum plenty of us have been behind on at some point in our lives, and his answer was to threaten a building full of people he never met.

Again, this reads like just another guy who couldn’t solve an ordinary adult problem without reacting with violence. I’d bet selling one or both of those guns would have covered most of that balance, if not all of it. I wouldn’t even be surprised if some of the debt came from buying the guns he used.

Now, let’s take a look at this troglodyte from the security footage…

It’s Florida, and he’s wearing a coat with no shirt and his man-titties flapping in the breeze. I bet he thought he looked like a badass. If it wasn’t for the fact he’s holding a gun, he’d be as intimidating as a lemon meringue pie. I’m surprised he didn’t keep a trench coat within arm’s reach at home at all times.

A Citigroup spokesperson said at a news conference that threats come in frequently and that every one of them gets assessed, and that this one was taken extremely seriously, with the security team adjusting its posture as events unfolded. I believe them, partly because I’ve been there.

Several of the office buildings I’ve worked in were like that one, and more than once I lived through an active threat against them, which is a terrifying experience. Keep in mind this was around the time that the phrase “going postal” was first coined. Thankfully none of those threats were ever carried out.

The people at Citibank weren’t so lucky, and I can’t imagine the terror of watching a car come through the gate while you’re eating lunch with your coworkers, then hiding in a locked room or a closet until deputies came to walk you out.

Which brings us back to the supposed clean criminal record and the father who didn’t think his son was capable of this. In October of 2008, a then-17-year-old Jacob Pearson was arrested for threatening to kill his principal, Rocky Hanna, and several of his classmates at Leon High School in Tallahassee.

Someone in a gun enthusiast chatroom had tipped off the FBI to a message Pearson posted asking how the Columbine killers got their guns and saying he wanted to “make history” at his old high school.

Investigators tracked his IP address and arrested him at home. He was suspended, recommended for expulsion, pleaded no contest in juvenile court, and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention center.

Apparently, the violent ideas never left him. 18 years later he traded a high school for a bank office, and the target changed, but not the instinct. As for the sheriff’s claim of no criminal record, juvenile cases often don’t count the way adult convictions do, so that may be technically true, but it’s cold comfort.

In a rational world, and Florida is far from rational, a person who was planning a school shooting and was locked up for it would never be allowed to own guns again. Not at 19, not at 35, not ever.

I’ll also say I have a hard time buying that his father never had a clue. Maybe Richard Pearson meant recently, since he told the AP they last spoke a few weeks ago and never discussed his son’s finances, but you don’t forget it when your teenager is arrested over threats like that and then spends a year and a half locked up.

So, if you’re one of those who shrug at kids getting shot in schools, maybe you’ll care about being shot at your job. Leanne Selman went to work on an ordinary Wednesday and never came home, and a man with a documented history of fantasizing about mass violence made it onto her workplace with 90 rounds.

The only things standing between him and a far worse day were a rifle that jammed and a Marine in a men’s room.

(Sources)