Free Republic

ecurity: A video by Somalia's al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group warns Minnesota's Mall of America may be a repeat of a 2013 mall attack in Kenya. The Second Amendment may be our best defense against terrorism. The immense Mall of America in Bloomington would indeed make an inviting target for jihadists intent on martyrdom. Its 520 stores, the most of any mall in the world, attracts 40 million people annually and is a global tourist destination. It's as inviting a target and as much of an iconic symbol of Western capitalism and culture as was the World Trade Center on Sept. 11,...

After Islamic gunmen attacked the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, the collective reaction from the US media was to speculate whether such terror could happen here, as if a jihadist assault on a mall inside America had never before been tried. CNN was typical: “Can it happen here? Yes, say security experts, but it hasn’t.” News flash: it did. On the evening of Feb. 12, 2007, a young Muslim man walked into the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City with a pistol-grip, 12-gauge shotgun and a 38-caliber revolver and opened fire on shoppers, killing five and wounding four others,...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. The...

What may be the final follow-up to the Valentine’s week massacre of 2007 got local coverage only — in the Salt Lake Tribune and by Salt Lake City radio station KSL. But at least a couple of the findings in this recently released FBI report on the incident go unmentioned by either news organization. Here are the significant findings in the report about Bosnian-Muslim murderer Sulejman Talovic, who killed five Americans and wounded four: 1) Talovic was described as a religious Muslim, attending mosque on Fridays and praying outside of mosque as well. 2) He wore a necklace with a...

The Bosnian Muslim community in Salt Lake is celebrating the arrival of a new religious leader. Dozens from the Bosnian community came to worship at 427 E. 3300 South. Friday is their holy day. There are presently 150 members. The new Imam spoke to the members about one of the five pillars of Islam--prayer. Not very long ago, he said he could not have imagined leaving Bosnia to come to Utah. But when he heard about the desire and need for a religious leader, it touched his heart. When asked why Bosnians worship separately from the Shia and Sunni Muslims,...

His face bathed in sunlight, Stacy Hansen was all smiles Tuesday as he sat in a wheelchair on his newly paved driveway. After spending nearly two months in University Hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to his lower back that left him paralyzed from the waist down, the 53-year-old was ecstatic to be home. "This is just overwhelming," said Hansen, who was among nine victims during a Feb. 12 shooting rampage at Trolley Square mall. Neighbors, firefighters, Salt Lake City police officers - including Chief Chris Burbank - and Ogden Officer Ken Hammond, who helped stop 18-year-old shooter Sulejman Talovic,...

Detectives have figured out how Sulejman Talovic got the revolver he used in the Trolley Square shootings and plan to pursue charges against as many as three people who had the gun before him. Talovic had the gun for at least seven months, acquiring it from an individual in June or July, said Lori Dyer, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Utah. The gun originally was bought legally at a store by a man out of state and was stolen, Dyer said. Then it changed hands six or seven times among...

BY LISA ROSETTA AND RUSS RIZZO MARCH 13, 2007 - It was going to be the happiest day of Sulejman Talovic's life. On the night of Feb. 11, Talovic talked to his girlfriend, Monika, for hours on the phone. " 'Something is going to happen tomorrow that you'll never be able to forgive me about,' " the 17-year-old remembers Talovic saying. "He said it was supposed to be the happiest day of his life and that it could only happen once in a lifetime." Monika pressed for details. "It involves everyone and everything," he said, except for her - he...

The final chapter of Sulejman Talovic, originally identified as a "trench coated teen" in the Trolley Square killing spree, ended with a full scale Islamic burial in his native Bosnia on Sunday. Indeed, the headline in Serbianna from Sunday, March 4, 2007 heralds, "Utah killer rewarded (italics CFP's) with Islamic burial in native Bosnia". In the days after Talovic's rampage through a Salt Lake City shopping mall, authorities were trying to figure out why a teenage Bosnian immigrant committed the rampage and how he got his hands on a gun--the same lament of his grieving father, Suljo Talovic at his...

Choking on her blood on the floor of Cabin Fever, Carolyn Tuft inched toward Kirsten, her mortally wounded daughter, to tell her that she loved her. Their faces close, she took her hand.     Mother and daughter had been in the store for just a few minutes, not even at the Valentine's Day cards yet, when Tuft heard a "pop." They were laughing and browsing, and at first Tuft paid little attention. As the danger became apparent, she couldn't know if it was safer where they were or out in the hall. She walked over to the window to see...

KSL television (NBC Utah) took Congressman Chris Cannon (R) from Utah's third district to task for spreading the "rumor" that Allahu Akbar was shouted by the Trolley Square Shooter before his death. There are a number of Freepers who have looked into this issue and have strong indications that this Islamic war cry is on the video tape recorded by Mr. Danise who found himself inside Trolley Square the night of this horrible terrorist attack. This Freeper (author) has contacted the Doug Wright Show (the talk show where Mr Cannon made his claim) at KSL and informed the show that...

A security worker for the LDS church reveals to ABC 4 News, security guards watching over the crowds at Music and the Spoken Word the Sunday before the Trolley Square shootings were trailing a man he believes was Sulejmen Talovic. The man spoke on strict condition of anonymity to ABC 4's Reed Cowan, saying, "There was a suspicious man with an overcoat and a back pack. By overcoat I mean a trench coat." The security worker went on to say that the young man, "appeared to be carrying something inside the coat that he kept adjusting." The security worker says...

SALT LAKE CITY (Feb. 19) -- At 1 a.m. last Tuesday, the parents of Sulejman Talovic called the police to report him missing. After watching television news coverage, they feared he might be among those dead or wounded in a shooting rampage at a mall here. One hour later, with the arrival of detectives, they discovered the shocking truth, that their son, 18, was the gunman. In six minutes on the night of Feb. 12, Mr. Talovic shot nine customers at the Trolley Square mall, killing five and seriously injuring four others. The attack ended when the police shot and...

   "I could see the bodies. That's when you realize this has gone too far. It's for real. . . . I lost my temper."     Barrett "Bear" Dodds       "It was a devastating scene inside that mall. It is pretty hard when you are passing over and see the ones you can't help."     Dennis McKone        "I've seen death and dying but the thing that breaks my heart . . . is to see young people dying needlessly."     DeEtta Barta        "Every single shot sounded the same to us. It sounded like it got a little closer, but it...

The shooting rampage at Trolley Square was not Sulejman Talovic's first act of violence. At age 12, Talovic was before a judge for allegedly holding a knife over the head of girl while stating, "I'll kill you," according to a source who is familiar with the case. Two years earlier, Talovic was referred to juvenile court for throwing rocks at a little girl. About the same time, he threatened his parents' landlord with a knife. The first girl was not struck by the stones. And the mother of the second girl snatched her up in the nick of time, just...

As a gunman unleashed his terror at Trolley Square on Monday evening, dozens of workers and customers fled for cover. Some of them ran toward the shots to get a glimpse of the gunman. Others came across shooting victims, both dead and alive. These are their stories, as told to five Salt Lake Tribune reporters at the scene: Jeremy Jensen, 26, of Salt Lake City, at Desert Edge Brew Pub, said he saw the shooter several hours earlier walking through the brewery. He remembered his long tan trenchcoat and that he had a mullet midway down his back. He said...

Video taken during attack at Salt Lake City mall picks up shouting of "Allah Akbar" 3 times.

[snip] Although he quit school at 16, Sulejman Talovic often attended Friday prayers at the Al-Noor mosque on 700 East in Salt Lake City,[ a block away from the mall] said Salih Omerovic, Ajka's cousin. Salih Omerovic said the young man stopped coming to the prayers in December, when he landed a full-time job at Aramark Uniform Services in South Salt Lake. He said Sulejman Talovic's father had pressured his son to get a job to help out with the family's living expenses. Imam Ali Mohamed, the spiritual leader at Al-Noor, said he does not know Talovic. "I know some...

On Monday, the day the mass murderer Sulejman Talovic gunned down nine unsuspecting shoppers in Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, five of whom died instantly, every report was calling it a “massacre.” Salt Lake City Salt Lake City Police Detective Robin Snyder observed: "We're just trying to figure out where it started and why this happened. There was one shooter. We have no indication that anyone else was involved in this. That shooter is dead." Eyewitnesses described the gunman as “white, in his 20s, about 6 feet tall, with brown hair.” The New York Post headlines screamed “UTAH...

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY Police are saying there may be as many as three people killed in gunfire at Trolley Square. Trolley Square is located at 700 east and 500 south in Salt Lake City. This all started around 7 p.m. Monday night. One witness told 2News that the shooter was about 6’1”, wearing a dark trench coat, carrying a backpack. That witness says the suspect was wielding a shotgun at his shoulder and taking aim. Cedrick heard two gunshots go off in the mall looked down off a balcony and saw the gunman. The gunman looked up and fired...