Little Known About Utah Mall Killer

(CBS/AP)  When Sulejmen Talovic stepped out of his car at a crowded shopping mall and immediately began shooting people at random Monday night, no one knew it was coming and no one apparently knew who the 18-year-old was at all.

Neighbors of Talovic told the Salt Lake City Tribune that they rarely saw the teenage immigrant from Bosnia and considered him a loner.

"He never came out much. You just never really got to see him," John Buddensick, who lived a half block from Talovic told the newspaper.

I didn't know him," said LaVonda Hardman, who lived across the street from Talovic. "I'd never seen a teenage boy at that home."

With a bandolier of shotgun shells under his trench coat and a backpack of ammunition on his shoulder, Talovic stepped out of his car at the crowded Trolley Square shopping mall and immediately began shooting.

The 18-year-old gunman fired randomly at anyone in his line of sight, police said, trying to hit as many people as possible.

He killed five, wounded several others and would have slain many more, the police chief said, had not an off-duty officer jumped up from his seat at a restaurant and cornered the suspect. The two exhanged fire until other officers arrived and killed the assailant.

Talovic's parents, Suljo and Sabira, have yet to comment publicly on their son's actions and his death, but his aunt, Ajka Onerovic, emerged briefly from the family's house to say relatives had no idea why the young man attacked so many strangers. She said the family moved to Utah from war-torn Bosnia. More than 3,000 Bosnians have immigrated to Utah since the mid-1990s.

"He was a nice boy," Onerovic told the Tribune. "We want to know what happened, just like you guys."

A day after the shooting, Ken Hammond was hailed for his daring as investigators struggled to determine why the teenager went on the deadly rampage, targeting shoppers with a supremely calm look on his face.

When he heard gunfire, Hammond was having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife. He immediately put himself in harm's way.

"I don't think that I really had time to hesitate," Hammond said, with his wife, Sarita, on CBS News' The Early Show Wednesday. Hammond, who said he almost always carries a gun when he is off-duty, said of the situation, "I had to react and I had to react right now." I did "what I've been trained to do."

"There is no question that (Hammond's) quick actions saved the lives of numerous other people," Police Chief Chris Burbank said of Hammond Tuesday.

Police said it was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed Talovic, who was armed with a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol.

Investigators knew little about Talovic, except than he lived in Salt Lake City with his mother, the police chief said. He was enrolled in numerous city schools before withdrawing in 2004, the school district said.

Talovic drove to the Trolley Square shopping center — a century-old former trolley barn with winding hallways, brick floors and wrought-iron balconies, and immediately killed two people, followed by a third victim as he came through a door, Burbank said. Five other people were then shot in a gift shop, he said.

Four people who were wounded remained hospitalized Tuesday, two in critical condition, two in serious.

One of the wounded shoppers, Shawn Munns, 34, was alone outside the mall after a meal with his wife and two stepchildren when Talovic blasted him with a shotgun, according to sister-in-law Jodie Sparrow.

With dozens of pellets embedded in his side, Munns staggered into a restaurant and warned diners about the gunman, Sparrow said.

Outside the mall, candles and flowers were left as memorials to the victims, who were identified as Jeffrey Walker, 52, Vanessa Quinn, 29, Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Teresa Ellis, 29, and Brad Frantz, 24.

Hammond's boss, Ogden Police Chief Jon Greiner, said the state Senate wants to honor him.

"Thank goodness he was there," said Greiner, who is also a state senator. "You don't want to ever say it's good we were there and killed somebody, but it's probably good someone was there."

Accountant Jeff Barlow was on a date at another restaurant when he looked outside and saw the gunman firing from the hip.

"I thought it was some kind of joke — some kind of movie or stunt," Barlow said. "I didn't believe it was happening. And then I saw a man go down in a courtyard. I realized this was serious. These are real bullets flying around."

His date, Stephanie Bronson, added: "Just crazy. Absolutely terrifying."

David Dean, who owns a greeting-card store at the mall, said three or four people died inside his store, which was packed with Valentine's Day shoppers.

The mall is scheduled to reopen Wednesday morning, though it will be up to individual stores whether to resume business, a mall spokeswoman said.

[retmilspouse]

Hey silver9991,
Ever thought about moonlighting as a stand up. I heard since the Michael Richards incident there is an opening.

Its better to just keep your mouth shut and let people think you are stupid, than opening it up and proving it.

[retmilspouse]

Wow...I sure pi$$ed off a few people...

YOOPERMOM, You did not **** me off and I appreciate your family's sacrifice as well. But it is really hard for me to sit and read some of this garbage from people who just do not seem to get it. Our way of life is under attack everyday here at home and all around the world. We are the defenders of human rights everywhere. I don't really care what kind of issues that person had. He killed innocents, pure simple!

And I agree with the statment that I do not want to lump all Muslims in one basket either, but until the innocent ones stand up against the evils of their brothers to me they are all the same.

[silver9991]

I'm trying to find a reliable source that says the kid was actually Muslim. The only place I've seen it has been in this comment thread.

[silver9991]

trueprogress may be right about profiling.

The same day the above rampage was committed, a white Christian male born in this country committed his own rampage.

The profiles both had in common: being male. Maybe we do need to be a female-dominated culture. Men after all do commit more violent crimes than women.

(The above is intended as satire. Perhaps trueprogress's was, too. Sometimes it's hard to tell in these posts.)

[trueprogress]

Profiling" has become such a dirty word, but in reality all that is hurt is someone's feelings.
We have become such a whoosy culture, female dominated , that we have to care so much about feelings, at the risk of blowing up innocent men, women and children.

[rupica]

u dont know the half of it ,THOSE BOSNIAN MUSLIMS THAT OUR GOVERMENT LET COME TO US BACK IN 1990 ARE THE WORST SCUM ,this is just the begining what is to come in terms of terror , they are descendents of turks and otoman empire, greece is still fighting over there with dirty turks to take their teritorys,,,they made open threats turks and bosnian muslims imigrants to pope. I HEAR HERE MORE TRUTFULL REPORTING is that it? lets talk about why bosnian muslims were given green cards to come here? like goverment didnt know what turks and those ppl are capable of?/ how about historical facts?/ i ll give u the truth this is something that not even hitler did but turks did and this bosnian muslims too wich is the same as TURKS, they would put wooden sticks trough ones *** all the way to the mouth ,put those sticks in to the ground preferably exposed it to the sun and let ppl die on the sticks like that, they made castles out of human sculls this castle still exist for anyone who wonts to see it!!! thats who USA let in, evil demanted psihotic hungry for blood TURKISH DESCENDENTS and as i said what this 18 y old did is just begining of what they are capable of GOD BLESS ALL OF US father son holy spirit AMEN!!!

[susanhelit]

(cont)
But we need to do this right - not through racial profiling - because they can get white guys and pregnant women to carry their bombs. We need to have some consideration for the innocents, and the uninvolved.

Because right now we give the terrorists too much assistance in recruiting - the terrorist says the western world wants to destroy all Muslims - and look there's a bunch of people posting about killing them all, how the religion is only about hate, etc. Then you look at what our government is doing - and here we are invading on the feeblest of pretexts, and saying we can't tell the difference between the muslims who attacked us at 9/11 (Al Queda, Taliban) and the ones who they hate (Iraq, Saddam). And, you know, it makes the terrorists look like they're right! That we are against all muslims, and they can stand up now, or be killed one by one. If we want them to believe we aren't trying to kill them, our words matter, and our deeds matter more than our words.

[susanhelit]

We may not be that far apart - I think we need to shut down any church preaching hate (hey, this gets rid of that idiot Phelps!), and use behavioral profiling (they used middle class americanized appearing hijackers because they knew they'd be less likely to be searched) rather than the very easily beaten racial profiling.

I'd agree about charities supporting terrorists - although that's already in place. And we need off of oil for a ton of different reasons, but one of the big ones is sure so that the Middle East can grow itself without the unbalancing force of way, way, way too much money in some hands.

(cont)

[trueprogress]

Susan: No one wants mass round ups of good Muslims. We do want honest reporting, honest screening of potential terrorists ( and not 100 year old ladies from Wisconsin ), We want Mosques advocating hate to be shut down. We want so called charities for Hamas et al to be shut down and people who contributed jailed for supporting terrorists. We want to be free of Arab OIL ! We need to get real, tough, and not openly let anybody in here from all these hateful countries !
We need to stop this stupid "we can;t judge" and "not all .... are terrorists ! " .

[trueprogress]

Susan : The Muslims that rode that plane into NYC and Washington on 911 were all very educated MIDDLE CLASS people, some with advanced degrees. The notion that if only they had economic opportunity they would not hate us, well, how many more acts of terror and American to die before you give this up, an idea straight out of MARXISM and college campuses.

This movement started as a method the get the 'far enemy" and run the whole world by ISLAMIC law. Very intolerant to women and others. Women were shot in the head at the local soccer stadium in Afghanistan for trivial . (I am not blaming all Muslims for that ! = but it would be nice to see a mass protest advocating rights of the innocent and freedom of speech by Muslims ! )
The truth is, this a a major class of cultures. Judeo Christians tolerance, vs. Closed Socieites of hateful and hate preaching Muslims cultures. SEE MEMRI.ORG if you want facts and not just fanciful wishful thinking !