1999 Family History Library shooting

Summary

The Family History Library shooting was a mass shooting that occurred on April 15, 1999, at the Family History Library, a genealogy research facility operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. At approximately 10:30 a.m. local time, a 70-year-old gunman entered the library’s lobby and opened fire, killing a church security officer and a visiting patron and wounding several others before being fatally shot by responding law enforcement officers. The shooting prompted the evacuation and temporary lockdown of surrounding buildings in downtown Salt Lake City amid fears of additional attacks. The incident occurred five days before the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado on April 20, 1999, and was later cited in retrospective coverage as part of a series of high-profile mass shootings in the United States that year.