The man who smashed a car through a fence at Citibank’s Tampa-area campus and opened fire on workers eating lunch was stopped by one of the company’s own security guards.
A gunman plowed a sedan into a courtyard at the Citibank Center complex in Brandon, Fla., on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026, stepped out with a rifle and fatally shot a woman before a company security guard killed him in an exchange of gunfire, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Frank Losat said.
Two people died: the woman, later identified by Citi as an employee, and the gunman, who was taken to a local hospital and died there. The security guard was injured, and four other people were taken to a hospital and later released, among them a pregnant woman checked as a precaution.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister called it a “tragic situation where a victim was killed by an individual who was intent on killing as many people as possible.”
The Crash Came Before the Gunfire
The first 911 calls reporting shots fired came in at 12:11 p.m., and deputies reached the Citibank office within one minute, the sheriff’s office said. Before the shooting started, the driver had run over several medians and a grassy area, torn through a fence and come to a stop in a courtyard where employees were eating at outdoor tables.
He got out with a rifle and shot the woman. When the rifle jammed, he went back to his car for a handgun and shot her again, the sheriff said Thursday. He had brought 90 rounds of ammunition. The security guard confronted him inside the cafeteria, the two traded fire, and the guard shot him five times. Body camera footage timestamped 12:16 p.m. and posted by the sheriff’s office shows an armed officer sprinting across the campus and shouting that the subject was in the cafeteria and possibly down. Other video shows crowds filing through packed hallways with their hands raised as sirens wailed outside.
Asked whether there had been potential for more violence, Losat answered absolutely, and he credited the guard with cutting the attack short.
Running Back Toward the Fire Escape
David Dzien, a Citibank vice president, said he was walking back to work after lunch when he saw the shooter’s sedan punch through a fence about 150 yards (137 meters) from him, followed by a hard rattling sound he only later understood to be gunfire. People near the wrecked car scattered. Others started screaming.
“I can still hear the particular type of scream, and I’m still trying to process it, frankly,” Dzien said, describing how he ran back into the building and got out through a fire escape.
The campus in suburban Tampa includes four three-story office buildings that house thousands of the bank’s workers. Losat said about 3,200 people were on the property at work when the attack began. Dzien said the day had drawn “VIPs” who do not normally work at the complex, there for a “quarterly review.”
Hundreds Took Shelter at a Hotel
More than 360 deputies, many of them in tactical gear, converged on the campus. They spent two and a half hours searching and clearing the building where the shootings happened along with adjacent office buildings, Losat said, and evacuated more than 3,000 employees in that span. Radio traffic from responding officers described a floor-by-floor sweep in which workers were found hiding in locked rooms and closets, then escorted out of the buildings and the parking garage.
A cafeteria employee who requested anonymity because she works at the complex said she hid in a room with five other people until police reached them. Some cried. Others tried to reach relatives or texted coworkers for news. Her first instinct, she said, was to call her mother so that someone would know where she was, and she tried to keep the others calm by telling them they would be all right.
A few hundred feet away, staff at the Sheraton Tampa Brandon Hotel were holding a monthly employee luncheon in the ballroom when they watched a wave of police vehicles tear toward the campus. Citibank workers ran to the front desk and told them an active shooter was inside, said General Manager Matt Chauvin. The hotel locked its doors and went into lockdown, he said, but employees kept arriving anyway.
Chauvin estimated the hotel took in about 300 Citibank workers. Staff handed out water and lunch and opened guest rooms so people could make phone calls or collect themselves. The hotel was far enough from the complex that everyone there was safe, he said.
Citi Says Its Campus Is Secure
Citigroup said in a statement that it was aware of an incident at the complex and was cooperating with authorities. Jane Fraser, the company’s chair and CEO, said her heart goes out to the family of the colleague who was killed, to the Tampa staff and to everyone touched by the violence, and that she is grateful to the security team whose actions she said kept the day from being worse.
Fraser said Citi is adding security at other sites as needed and that counseling and other resources will be available to employees. Citigroup spokesman Ed Skyler said Tampa employees can work remotely for now.
On Thursday, Nov. 5, Chronister identified the gunman as Jacob Pearson, 35, of Orlando, and the woman he killed as Leanne Selman, 41, of Palm Harbor, a human resources employee who had worked for Citi for nine years. Citibank had sued Pearson over about $2,500 in unpaid credit card debt, and about three hours before the attack he called a law firm handling the collection and threatened violence, the sheriff said. “This was targeted; he targeted Citibank employees yesterday, holding them responsible for his debt,” Chronister said.
Chronister said there was “zero connection” between Selman and Pearson. He identified the officer who shot Pearson as John Fraley, a Marine Corps veteran and vice president of operations on Citi’s security team.
