Shooting at Utah Mall

[southsider2k5]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17124042/

 

Police seek answers in Salt Lake City rampage

Teen assailant kills 5, wounds 4 in mall; witness says he opened fire calmly

 

 

Updated: 1 hour, 11 minutes ago

SALT LAKE CITY - The trench coat-clad gunman who killed five people and wounded four at a shopping mall before being fatally shot by police calmly fired a shotgun at his victims and had a handgun, authorities and witnesses said.

 

Detectives were trying to determine what sparked the rampage at the Trolley Square shopping mall on Monday night.

 

Detective Robin Snyder said the shooter was an 18-year-old from the Salt Lake City area, but she did not release his name.

 

As investigators interviewed 100 to 200 witnesses, people left candles and flowers at two memorials outside the mall for the victims.

 

Many people forced to leave their cars overnight returned Tuesday to pick them up and reflect on what happened.

 

“I’ve worked here for 28 years. It’s been the safest place to be,” said Steve Farr, who saw pools of blood and broken glass throughout the mall when he was allowed in to check his jewelry store.

 

Marie Smith, 23, a Bath & Body Works manager, said she had seen the gunman through the store window. She watched as he raised his gun and fired at a young woman approaching him from behind.

 

‘An Average Joe’ explodes

“His expression stayed totally calm. He didn’t seem upset, or like he was on a rampage,” said Smith, who crawled to an employee restroom to hide with others. He looked like “an average Joe,” she said.

 

Killed in the attack were two 28-year-old women, a 52-year-old man, a 24-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl, Snyder said. Four people were hospitalized — a man and a woman in critical condition and two men in serious condition, Snyder said.

 

For hours after the rampage, police searched stores for scared, shocked shoppers and employees who were hunkered down awaiting a safe escort.

 

Matt Lund was visiting his wife, Barbara, manager of the Secret Garden children’s clothing store, when he heard the first shots. The couple and three others hid in a storage room for about 40 minutes, isolated but still able to hear the violence.

 

Victims briefly treated like suspects

“We heard them say, ’Police! Drop your weapon!’ Then we heard shotgun fire. Then there was a barrage of gunfire,” said Lund, 44. “It was hard to believe.”

 

Witnesses said officers treated everyone like suspects — ordering those hiding in storerooms, bathrooms or under stairwells, to lie on the floor with their hands on their heads until police were sure no one posed a threat.

 

On the way out, Lund said, he saw a woman’s body face-down at the entrance to Pottery Barn Kids and a man’s body on the floor in the mall’s east-west corridor. “There were a lot of blown-out store windows and shotgun shell casings all over the floor,” Lund said. “It was quite surreal.”

 

The victims were found throughout the 239,000-square-foot shopping mall.

 

Outside, streets were blocked as police swarmed the four-block scene. Dozens of people lingered on the sidewalk, many wrapped in blankets, as they talked about what they had seen inside.

 

Historical site

The two-story mall, southeast of downtown, is a refurbished trolley barn built in 1908, with a series of winding hallways, brick floors, wrought-iron balconies and about 80 stores, including high-end retailers such as Williams-Sonoma and restaurants such as the Hard Rock Cafe.

 

 

Antiques store owner Barrett Dodds, 29, said he saw a man in a trench coat exchanging gunfire with a police officer outside a card store. The gunman, he said, was backed into a children’s clothing store.

 

“I saw the shooter go down,” said Dodds, who watched from the second floor.

 

Four police officers — one an off-duty officer from Ogden and three Salt Lake City officers — were involved in the shootout with the gunman, Snyder said. She provided no other details.

 

Barb McKeown, 60, of Washington, D.C., was in another antiques shop when two frantic women ran in and reported gunshots.

 

“Then we heard shot after shot after shot — loud, loud, loud,” said McKeown, saying she heard about 20. She and three other people hid under a staircase until it was safe to leave.

 

Mall owners respond

The mall was purchased in August by Scanlan Kemper Bard Cos. of Portland, Ore., from Simon Property Group for $38.6 million. The company said it planned to invest $80 million, attract a new anchor tenant and possibly add condominiums.

 

“We are devastated and shocked by this senseless, random act of violence and tragedy at Trolley Square, owner Tom Bard said in a statement posted on the KSL-TV Web site. “At this time our greatest concern and prayers are with the victims, their families and loved ones.”

 

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[iWiN4PreP]

Utah has malls? .

 

Anyway, interesting story, Thanks for the post.

[DBAHO]

That's kinda crazy that I was actually there about 9 months ago.

[southsider2k5]

It seems the shooter might have survived a massacre in Bosnia

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17156121/

 

Cousin: Mall gunman survived Bosnian siege

Utah assailant said to have lived through massacre of 8,000 Muslims in ’95

 

 

Updated: 6:00 p.m. CT Feb 14, 2007

CERSKA, Bosnia - The 18-year-old gunman who shot dead five people in a Salt Lake City shopping mall was a survivor of the siege that ended in the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, a cousin said on Wednesday.

 

Sulejman Talovic, who was killed by police after Monday’s shooting spree in which he also wounded four people, fled his village with his family during the Bosnia war to Srebrenica, a U.N.-protected enclave, Redzo Talovic said.

 

They spent two years in the town, during which Bosnian Serb forces besieged the enclave and Sulejman’s grandfather was killed by shellfire, Redzo said.

 

When the Bosnian Serbs overran the town in 1995, taking away and massacring some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Sulejman and his mother were evacuated by the United Nations and later reunited with his father, Redzo said.

 

“They were a good, quiet family and I remember that he was a nice kid when he was four or five, maybe a little bit playful,” he said, standing in front of the burnt-out shell of Sulejman’s family home in the village of Talovici, eastern Bosnia.

 

“No one could have supposed that he was going to do such a thing,” Redzo said. “Who knows what made him do that?” He could not say what marks Sulejman’s childhood memories of wartime Bosnia had left on him.

 

Redzo said he was in shock when he heard the news.

 

“I couldn’t believe it. I heard that his parents are dumbfounded, they can’t believe he did that,” said Redzo, one of the few villagers to have returned to Talovici.

 

Sulejman and his family never visited Bosnia or kept in touch after moving to the United States as refugees in 2000, Redzo said.

 

Police said Sulejman and his mother had lived in Salt Lake City for a few years, during which he had four minor incidents with police as a juvenile.

 

The teenager, dressed in a trench coat and carrying a shotgun, a .38 caliber pistol and what police said was a “backpack full of ammunition,” opened fire at random on Monday evening, sending terrified shoppers running for cover.

 

Salt Lake City police chief Chris Burbank said the gunman seemed determined to “shoot as many people as he possibly could.”

[Texsox]

I watched the CNN broadcast of the off duty officer and was very impressed. I have a ton of respect for cops, who have to run towards the gun shots, not away.

[whitesoxfan101]

Well, for the first time ever, I am sad to hear that a young child did not die in a mass siege of death, considering what he did at that mall. Says a lot about humanity these days.

[redandwhite]

http://kutv.com/video/[email protected]