Final report finds no motive for Trolley Square massacre
"Then you read it in simple English, and it's kind of painful," he said Tuesday, the day Salt Lake City police released their final report on the Trolley Square mall massacre.
Although it details what happened the tragic night of Feb. 12, the 10-page report, supplemented with 32 pages of diagrams and evidence logs, does not offer much that wasn't already known.
The biggest question — why — remains a mystery.
"Surprisingly, law enforcement was able to learn relatively little about Sulejman Talovic and his motive for committing these atrocities," the report says.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank admitted that not being able to clearly identify a motive is frustrating.
"That's tough when we don't have all the answers," he said Tuesday.
The report was based on extensive interviews by homicide detectives with victims, survivors, witnesses, as well as Talovic's relatives, friends, co-workers and teachers.
Rich Quinn said he was grateful for the police department's efforts.
"To try to get some answers even though nobody expected to find any, I was extremely impressed," he told the Deseret Morning News.
The report was first released to the victims' families and the survivors during a meeting Tuesday morning at the U.S. Attorney's Office. The families of the victims met with police officers and other first responders.
"It was just a very real one-on-one personal kind of thing," said Ken Hammond, the off-duty Ogden police officer who got into a shootout with Talovic. "To be able to see family members of the victims, it made it that much more real and personal."
Out of respect for the families, Hammond said he would not reveal what was said in that meeting. Burbank also declined to discuss the meeting, but did say that even though the report was the end of the police investigation — it was not the end of his department's involvement.
"As far as an ongoing study on how can we respond better, how can we prevent this from happening again, it's nowhere near over," he said.
Armed with a pistol-grip shotgun and a .38-Special revolver, the 18-year-old Talovic shot and killed Teresa Ellis, 29; Brad Frantz, 24; Kirsten Hinckley, 15; Vanessa Quinn, 29; and Jeffrey Walker, 52. He wounded Stacy Hanson, Shawn Munns, Carolyn Tuft and AJ Walker in the rampage.
The report revealed that in many instances, Talovic went back to the people he shot and fired on them again, delivering a fatal shot. After shooting up the Cabin Fever card shop, he encountered Hammond, who then distracted Talovic.
Talovic was then killed in a shoot-out with police.
The report revealed Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Andy Oblad fired twice at Talovic after the gunman first fired his shotgun at the officer. Oblad and Hammond faced Talovic together from one direction. From the opposite direction, Sgt. Josh Scharman fired three rounds into Talovic's back and then two more into his chest and one into his head after Talovic turned to face him. Detective Brett Olsen fired five times at Talovic and then twice more when he turned toward him. Detective Dustin Marshall fired another five rounds at Talovic.
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JM | Feb. 12, 2008 at 7:23 a.m.
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