Talovic's shotgun acquired legally
The 18-year-old shooter was old enough to buy the 12-gauge, which was purchased at a local sporting goods store
By Nate Carlisle and Russ Rizzo
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:
The shotgun Sulejman Talovic fired in the Trolley Square killings was purchased legally at a local sporting goods store, a source close to the investigation said.
Detectives, however, still are trying to trace a .38-caliber pistol Talovic also used against patrons and police last Monday evening.
The source did not specify whether Talovic or someone else bought the shotgun and declined to identify the store, but so far no one is suspected of unlawfully assisting Talovic in acquiring the guns, the source said.
Talovic, 18, walked through Trolley Square mall with a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, the .38 and a backpack full of ammunition. In about six minutes, he shot nine shoppers at random, killing five before dying in a shootout with police.
According to Utah law, an 18-year-old can buy a shotgun or rifle from a licensed gun dealer after passing an instant background check. Licensed dealers cannot sell a handgun to someone under 21.
But people under 21 can legally purchase firearms from a private individual without a background check.
Suljo Talovic, Sulejman's father, has speculated that someone helped his son obtain the guns because he knew of no guns inside his house, where the young man lived, and did not believe his son knew anything about guns.
Quoting an unnamed source, KSL-Radio on Friday reported that Talovic violated school rules when he looked up AK-47s on the Internet in November 2004 at Horizonte Instruction and Training Center, after which he dropped out of school.
Suljo Talovic said he knew nothing about the Internet incident. He said his son had trouble with at least one other student while he attended Horizonte, a vocational school downtown. He said a student had "threatened [to] kill" his son.
Soon after that incident, he said, Sulejman's mother talked to a school official and withdrew her son from the school, he said.
Suljo Talovic said Saturday he still was dealing with paperwork to take his son's body to his hometown of Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, for burial.
Tuzla, about 85 miles north of the capital of Sarajevo, remains the most ethnically diverse city left in Bosnia following the 1992-95 war that killed more than 200,000 people and left nearly 2 million homeless.
The father, who planned to clean his son's body today, said taking the body to Tuzla will cost about $10,000.
Also on Saturday, a Bosnian television station interviewed Suljo Talovic and Bisera Turkovic, Bosnia's ambassador to the United States. The grieving father told the TV station he planned to stay in Salt Lake City, adding that Utahns have been supportive of his family.
That support continued late Saturday morning when Salt Lake City residents Larry and Erika Johnson approached Talovic as he was standing in his front yard and handed him $200 cash.
"I want you to know I love you," Larry Johnson told Talovic. "You are the greatest victims in all of this."
Erika Johnson, an Austrian-Hungarian who was in Poland during World War II, said she witnessed atrocities by Nazis when she was a little girl and knows the scars war can leave.
Perplexed by his son's actions, Suljo Talovic has speculated that the violence Sulejman saw as a young boy in war-ravaged Bosnia contributed to the shooting. But he said he saw no warning signs.
Sulejman Talovic left no note explaining his actions, and he left little behind to help police in their investigation. A cellular telephone and a video camera were among the teen's possessions confiscated by police, Suljo Talovic said.
The basement where the teen lived was mostly bare, with just a queen-size bed and a TV in his bedroom and another television and a bunk bed where his sisters used to sleep in an adjoining common space in their simple mint-colored house in the state Fairpark neighborhood.
Salt Lake City resident Kelly Patterson offered the Talovics a spot in his family burial ground for Talovic's son. Talovic declined the offer but expressed gratitude to Patterson, repeating a line he has said countless times to well-wishers and reporters since he learned his son was the Trolley Square shooter.
"I'm sorry for everyone," Suljo Talovic said in broken English. "I'm sorry for all the families."
Minutes later, David and Lana Mills stopped by the house and handed Talovic a card in a yellow envelope.
"I'm so sorry," David mills told Suljo Talovic. "I feel terrible about the situation. It's certainly not your fault."
Suljo Talovic said he was surprised by the sympathy Salt Lake City residents have offered him. He said he has received too many cards to count and about $1,000 in all, mostly from strangers.
Salih Bajrovic, president of the Utah chapter of the Congress of Bosniaks, a cultural organization, said he planned to set up a fund in coming days for donations to the family. The Bosna restaurant in South Salt Lake is collecting donations in two fishing tackle boxes, one for the Talovic family and one for the victims of Sulejman Talovic's rampage.
"I am surprised," Talovic told The Tribune Saturday, speaking through an interpreter. "I would have thought when something like this happened that people would be the opposite - that they would be aggressive. But every single person is supportive."
ncarlisle@altrib.com
rrizzo@sltrib.com
sltrib.com |
