The Associated Press / Flowers are placed outside the Chico branch of the Butte County Library a day after a shooting on Tuesday in Chico, Calif.

The 18-year-old suspect in a shooting at a Northern California library did a walkthrough of the building, then went to his vehicle, got a shotgun and fatally shot a man at the main door and another inside, law enforcement said Tuesday.

Chico Police Chief Billy Aldridge said gunshots and screams could be heard on a 911 call Monday evening from the Chico branch of the Butte County Library. Officers arrived within two minutes of the call, he said.

“From the first 911 call to having him in custody was less than four minutes,” Aldridge said, praising officers for stemming the loss of life.

The suspect shot a man at the entrance of the library in the leg and then shot him in the head before firing multiple shots inside and shooting another man in the head, said Sid Patel, special agent in charge in the FBI’s Sacramento office.

“Yesterday’s violent attack was horrific,” Patel said. “The full force of the FBI is assisting this investigation.”

Details emerge on the victims and the arrest

Authorities identified the men who died as 46-year-old Jacob Hull and 74-year-old Robert Johnson.

A child was taken to a hospital with a minor injury, Aldridge said. Her name was not released.

The suspect fled out the back of the library as officers entered, but additional law enforcement personnel behind the building took the man into custody, Aldridge said during a news conference after the arrest.

“The incident this evening was obviously very sad, traumatic for a lot of people. Very traumatic for our community,” Aldridge said.

Officers recovered a shotgun from the floor of the library and two other guns from the suspect’s car. The weapons were registered to the suspect’s family, the police chief said, without providing any other information.

The shooting in Chico — a city of about 100,000 people about 150 miles northeast of San Francisco — shocked the community in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and led authorities to say they will add security personnel at each library location.

There have been at least three fatal attacks at libraries in the last nine years.

A man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to fatally shooting a man in a library and another man in a convenience store in 2023. In 2020, a suspect was sent to a mental health facility after he pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a library security guard in Spring Valley, New York. A teenager who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting two public library employees in Clovis, New Mexico, in 2017 was also sentenced to life in prison.

“A library should be a place of joy,” said Misty Wright, director of public libraries in Butte County. “Most of all it should be a place that feels safe. Yesterday that safety was shattered.”

Wright said that before the shooting, the libraries were visited by “mobile patrols” and that she wasn’t sure if they are armed.

A video from the scene shows police patrol cars surrounding the one-story brick building and officers pointing their rifles. Another video shows a man face-down on the ground being handcuffed by a police officer who then picks him up and hands him to another officer who walks him away from the building.

The streets around the library were closed temporarily and a family reunification center was set up for people who were inside the building.