He was being arrested in the article, not IRL. When I say “Ulbricht walked into the public library and sat down at the table directly in front of me” I mean that I read

> He went... past the periodicals and reference desk, beyond the romance novels, and settled in at a circular table near science fiction, on the second floor... in a corner, with a view out the window and his back toward the wall.

and realized that I was in the Glen Park public library, at a circular table near science fiction on the second floor, in a corner with my back to the window, and facing directly towards where the article had just said he had sat.

Then he realized that he was Ross Ulbricht all along.

That’s because they are describing the inner workings of their visualization systems.

They saw him walk in because he was where it happened. The image of Ross, and others, was in mind, however.

I had the same confusion initially, interestingly chat GPT gets it:

So while wolfgang42 wasn't there when Ulbricht was actually arrested, their realization created a vivid mental image of the event unfolding in that space, which made the story feel more immersive.

In short: they were reading about an old event, but it happened to occur in the same spot they were sitting at that moment. Hope that clears it up!

Yeah, whoosh for me.