SHE WENT TO WORK AND NEVER CAME HOME: REMEMBERING LEANNE SELMAN AFTER THE CITIBANK ATTACK

Leanne Selman had spent nine years working for Citibank. On Wednesday, November 4, 2026, the 41-year-old employee was at the company’s Tampa-area campus when a gunman arrived carrying anger over a credit card debt. Authorities say she had no connection to him. Yet she became the person who lost her life in an attack directed at employees he blamed for his financial dispute. Behind the reports of gunfire, emergency response, and a security officer’s intervention is a woman whose workday ended in violence—and a family facing her permanent absence.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister identified the gunman as Jacob Pearson, 35, of Orlando. According to the sheriff, Pearson targeted Citibank over a debt of approximately $2,500 and a related court summons. He drove roughly 90 miles to the corporate campus, where thousands of employees were working. Investigators described a deliberate journey toward a workplace filled with people who had nothing to do with his personal grievance. The debt provides context for the motive authorities have described. It offers no justification for the violence.

The warning began before Pearson reached the campus. Chronister said Pearson called an attorney’s office involved in collecting the debt and threatened violence unless the legal proceeding was canceled. The threat was reported, and security personnel and law enforcement began responding. According to reporting on the sheriff’s briefing, officers went to Pearson’s Orlando home and learned he had already left. Deputies were also sent to the Citibank property. These developments form part of a timeline investigators are examining to establish what was known and when.

By lunchtime, the threat had become an attack. Authorities say Pearson drove through a security barrier and into a courtyard where employees were eating. He left his vehicle armed and opened fire. Selman was fatally wounded. The sheriff said she was the first employee Pearson encountered, rather than someone he had personally sought out. That distinction is devastating: her life was taken at a place where she had every reason to expect to complete an ordinary day and return home safely.

Leanne Selman had no connection to the gunman’s debt, but she paid with her life.

Reports describing the shooting include disturbing details about Pearson’s weapons and actions. They establish the seriousness of the attack without requiring a graphic reconstruction of Selman’s final moments. What matters is that authorities describe an armed man bringing lethal violence into a workplace and killing someone unrelated to his grievance. Her family’s loss should remain visible beneath the attention given to the attacker. She was not an anonymous figure in an emergency timeline. She was a person whose presence mattered to colleagues, friends, and loved ones.

After the courtyard shooting, Pearson entered the building and moved through the cafeteria area, according to investigators. Employees fled or sought shelter as the emergency unfolded. Approximately 3,200 people were on the campus that day. That number describes the scale of the workplace, not a count of people who witnessed the same events. Some would have been close to the gunfire; others would have learned of the danger through warnings or the movement around them. Their experiences should not be combined into an invented single scene.

Inside the facility, John Fraley confronted the gunman. Authorities identified Fraley, 38, as a member of Citibank’s armed security team and credited him with stopping the attack. He shot Pearson, who was transported to a hospital and died. The sheriff praised the intervention and said it prevented further loss of life. The account describes a security professional responding under immediate threat, at a moment when employees were trying to escape danger. His actions became a central part of the official explanation of how the shooting ended.

Four other people received medical treatment for non-life-threatening injuries or concerns and were released, according to authorities. Reports describe injuries sustained while fleeing and medical issues arising during the emergency. They were not additional gunshot victims. That distinction matters when explaining the toll. Selman was killed, the gunman died after being shot by security, and others required care. Beyond those documented outcomes were coworkers and families who had to absorb the knowledge that a familiar workplace had become the scene of a deadly attack.

The security response stopped the gunman, but it could not undo the loss already suffered.

Authorities released video and emergency-call material after the shooting, bringing parts of the response into public view. Such footage can help establish chronology and show the conditions responders encountered. It remains a partial record, captured from particular positions during a fast-moving event. A clip cannot convey every employee’s experience or the full meaning of Selman’s death to those closest to her. Public attention should distinguish between what recordings show, what investigators explain, and what remains under examination rather than treating every circulating description as settled fact.

The reported threat also raises questions about the interval before Pearson arrived. Officials have described efforts to locate him and reinforce security, while reporting continues to examine the sequence. Those questions deserve evidence-based answers. A complete assessment requires more than hindsight or a few moments of video. It requires understanding the information available, the communications between agencies and security personnel, and the time in which decisions were made. Establishing that record is important for accountability and for understanding the response without inventing certainty.

Selman’s life extended well beyond the office. In a public remembrance, Citi described her love of music and animals, including her dog and snake. The company also recognized her passion for dance as a fire performer and flow artist. These details offer a fuller image of the woman coworkers are mourning: someone with creative interests, attachments, and a life outside her job. Colleagues described her warmly, emphasizing the trust and empathy she brought to her relationships. Their memories deserve space beside the account of the attack.

Citi also announced a contribution to establish a Tampa Bay performing arts fund in her honor. The tribute connects remembrance to an interest she genuinely held, allowing her name to remain associated with creativity and community. No donation can repair the loss. It can, however, preserve something about her that the circumstances of her death cannot explain. Her years of work and her artistic life belong to the same person, and both deserve recognition as those who knew her decide how to remember her.

Her story deserves to be remembered through the life she lived, not only the violence that ended it.

For her loved ones, the aftermath will continue after the emergency vehicles leave and public interest moves elsewhere. Coworkers must also face a changed relationship with a place they knew through daily routines. The investigation will address the attack and its warning signs. Remembrance carries a different responsibility: keeping Leanne Selman visible as a person. She went to work that Wednesday with a life beyond the campus and people who expected her to return. She deserved to leave safely, continue her creative pursuits, and have many more ordinary days.