-Caveat Lector- Thursday, April 15, 1999 15:45 EDT Gunman opens fire Kills 2, wounds 4, before being shot to death by police By Paul Foy Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY -- A gunman opened fire today at the Mormon church's Family History Library, killing two people and wounding four others before he was shot to death by police. Police SWAT teams were combing the building to determine whether another gunman was inside the building more than two hours after the 10:30 a.m. shooting began. Seventeen people on the second floor who had locked themselves inside when the shooting began were evacuated unharmed early this afternoon as SWAT teams continued to comb the building, said Police Chief Ruben Ortega. Police were skeptical of early suspicions that a second gunman was involved. Mayor Deedee Corradini told reporters that a library security guard and a female patron had died of their wounds and that the suspect also had died. Ortega said police had identified the gunman, who had a local address, but they did not immediately release his name. The gunman, who had exchanged gunfire with police, was taken out of the building to an ambulance parked in front of a nearby restaurant, but paramedics believed he might be wired with an explosive and the area was evacuated. He died in the ambulance and police Sgt. Ken Hansen said he had no explosives. Hansen said the four wounded included a police officer. The wounds were not believed to be life-threatening, he said. Lyman Platt, a genealogist, said a 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. Jaqueline Nelson, a researcher who was working on the first floor, said: "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. The library, one of the world's top centers for genealogical research, 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. A KSL-TV employee, Tamara Orr, said a man matching the description of a suspect asked her for directions to the Family History Library earlier this morning. The man, who appeared to be in his late 50s, was bearded and wore disheveled clothes. The man drove a yellow moving truck, which KSL reported was being investigated by a police bomb squad early this afternoon. The truck was parked near the station, three blocks west of the history library. The church has been involved in genealogy since its founding nearly 170 years ago. The church amasses the records for what it calls the baptism of the dead. Mormons believe that such baptisms give the dead the opportunity to join the Mormon church in the afterlife. ================================= Robert F. Tatman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Remove "nospam" from the address to reply. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. 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