Salt Lake City Public Library hostage incident

On March 5, 1994, a hostage situation occurred at the former main branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, a building that now houses The Leonardo, a culture and arts center. During a public demonstration of a Tibetan sand painting ceremony, a man later identified as Clifford Lynn Draper jumped onto a service desk in the Fiction section, brandished an M1911 pistol, and claimed to be carrying a bomb. He forced nearby patrons into a conference room that already held a Toastmasters group, including librarian Gwen Page, six civilians, and off-duty Salt Lake County Sheriff's Lt. Lloyd Prescott, who was in plain clothes with a concealed pistol.

Inside the room, Draper made hostages line up facing the wall while he issued demands. Some hostages were quietly moved out through a second door by a member of the Toastmasters group, prompting others in the building to flee as well. Page and several others remained in the room while Draper made threats but did not fire his weapon.

Library staff responded by calling 911 and evacuating the five-story building in under five minutes using the fire alarm system. Some staff remained on-site to assist police with floor plans and to manage phone, security, and power systems at the request of SWAT teams. Librarian Jenny Wright hid a group of eight children and their parents from the nearby Children's Section in a separate conference room until it was safe to lead them to an exit through the staff area.

Draper placed a device he described as a bomb, rigged with a dead man's switch, on a table in the conference room, and the standoff lasted more than six hours. During this time he demanded cash, gold and platinum bullion, back pay for prior military service, and a presidential pardon from President Bill Clinton. At one point he had a hostage add duct tape to the bomb and announced hostages would draw straws to determine an execution order. Lt. Prescott, believing the room's oak table might shield hostages, fired five shots at Draper as SWAT members broke through the conference room's glass walls. Draper was fatally wounded and pronounced dead at LDS Hospital. The bomb did not detonate because Draper's own added tape had jammed the dead man's switch mechanism.

Police determined the device was a real, homemade bomb modeled on a Vietnam War-era Claymore-style anti-personnel mine. The Salt Lake City Police Department's bomb squad judged it too unstable to move and detonated it inside the conference room; the oak table was not penetrated by shrapnel, confirming Lt. Prescott's assessment. The incident was later dramatized in television programs including Rescue 911, I Survived..., In an Instant, and I, Hostage.