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| Relative denies Islam drove Salt Lake killer | |
| 2007-02-15 | |
| The profile of the Bosnian immigrant who gunned down five people at a shopping mall is filled with uncertainty. Neighbors say they rarely saw the lanky teenager, whose mother removed him from school at 16 to work. But family members agree on what Sulejman Talovic, 18, was not: He was not motivated by Islamic belief or an act of terrorism when he shot nine people, five fatally, before he was stopped by police. Trolley Square reopened Wednesday, less than 48 hours after the rampage, but some stores remained closed and plywood covered shattered windows. Bosnia's U.S. ambassador, Bisera Turkovic, planned to visit the city today in the search for answers to the shooting. Turkovic was scheduled to join fellow countrymen for lunch at the Bosna Restaurant and attend an evening memorial at the library. "We are Muslims, but we are not terrorists," the boy's aunt, Ajka Omerovic, said Wednesday. She rejected any religious motive for the shooting and said the family is as mystified as anyone in a city that logged just eight homicides in 2006. Authorities also are at a loss to figure out why Talovic committed the rampage and how he got his hands on a gun. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating how Talovic got a .38-caliber pistol. He also had a shotgun, a bandolier of shotgun shells under his trench coat and a backpack full of ammunition. But it's the pistol that he wasn't legally allowed to possess. "You can buy long guns at 18. ... The handgun he shouldn't have had," said Lori Dyer, in charge of the local ATF office. Talovic lived with his parents and three younger sisters in a tiny ranch house on the west side, blocks from where a railroad yard and Interstate 15 slice through Salt Lake City. His father works long hours in construction.
Talovic worked for two months as a general laborer at Aramark Uniform Services, an industrial launderer and uniform-rental company, manager Trent Thorn said. He appeared for his regular shift on the day of the shooting. Talovic and his family moved to the U.S. after living as refugees in Bosnia for five years, people close to the family still living in Bosnia told the AP. He was only 4 when he and his mother fled their village of Talovici on foot after Serbian forces overran it in 1993, they said. "Many left the village, but only a few made it," said Murat Avdic, a family friend. | |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #17 LH - I admire the way you play "devil's advocate" and bring up points that are not being considered by others. It keeps the discussions interesting, even when I don't agree with everything you say. And you always seem to try to be reasonable and considerate of others. If the Democrats had as strong a right-wing (along LH-Lieberman-Sam Nunn lines) as it does a left wing, I'd feel a lot better about politics in this country. |
| Posted by: ryuge 2007-02-15 20:29 |
| #16 The guy was probably a Frustrated, Aimless, and Depressed Muslim Youth™ that stumbled upon Rantburg and went ape$hit after reading a few articles. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-02-15 15:37 |
| #15 I don't think the WOT is "very serious." I wish it were. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-02-15 15:21 |
| #14 "My recollection is that they were pretty involved with the goth scene, and were agnostic" At this point, we dont even know that the SLC shooter was not an agnostic. In Bosnia "muslim" is more or less an ethnic marker - a member of the muslim community, as opposed to Serb or Croat. IIUC you can be an agnostic "muslim" in Sarajevo just as you can be an agnostic serb or croat. Just as, of course, you can be an agnostic in the IRA. In any case, its also a fact that the IRA is, after all, a terrorist org, with political objectives. This guy may well be a freelancer, and may have had no political objectives. Grouping some guy who goes on a bender with AQ or Hezbollah just cause hes a nominal muslim, without EITHER any connection to a group OR any evidence of a political-religious motive, reeks of trying to build an unjustified case against muslims. Its the kind of thing that brings the very serious war on terror into disrepute. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-15 15:08 |
| #13 LH...I don't recall the Columbine teens being "Christian". My recollection is that they were pretty involved with the goth scene, and were agnostic. I understand your point, though. But I think the point could easily extend to the "Catholic" IRA, the "Protestant" Ian Paisley-Unionist gangs, and a host of secular-muslim terror groups. Calling them "Christian" terrorists, IMHO, is a stretch. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-02-15 14:28 |
| #12 pretty high. So what? Not everyone who kills in Baghdad is trying to kill Mussies. There are common criminals, for ex. But after almost 4 years, ive yet to hear of a Goth video gaming trenchcoat wearing type setting off bombs in Iraq, and Ive heard of plenty of instances of bombs going off being claimed by AQ and other Sunni groups. Im sure IF there was some deranged mentally ill guy determined to do a Columbine in Iraq, hed do it in the name of Allah, cause thats the culture. That seems to be what happened at the JCC in Seattle, and it could well be what happened in SLC, which is why I suggested option 3. But Im not sure. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-15 14:01 |
| #11 #10./ LH, By your token, a mossie bomb in a market-place down-town Bagdhad, what the chances it kills mossies? |
| Posted by: rhodesiafever 2007-02-15 13:23 |
| #10 Mark Z - no evidence for != ruling out BA - it was a Jewish community center, in Seattle any - so were the Columbine shooters "Christianist terrorists" (even though they target christians? After all they were nominally christian, and we dont know if this guy was more than nominally muslim, and they terrorized) Was Ivan Boeskly a "Judaist swindler" (Well im sure all the antisemite web sites think so)? Unless hes shown to have some religious or political motivation, hes merely a shooter who happened to be muslim. mark z - five non-muslims dead. Well, what are the odds of hitting a muslim if you go shooting at random in a mall in SLC? |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-15 13:16 |
| #9 and...He is a muslim, and he is a terrorist. You're telling me that when a person methodically walks through a mall terrorizing hundreds of people with a weapon, shoots 9 innocent people, murders 5 with intent to murder more is not an act of terror???? He is an islamic terrorist. Maybe not the classic definition we have grown to despise...but an islamic terrorist none the less. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-02-15 12:32 |
| #8 As a longtime Linux guy...JFM is right on. However, the probability of a home system running an encrypted filesytem is almost nil. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2007-02-15 12:25 |
| #7 Well, Mark, I remember at least 2 events (not long after 9/11): (1) the shooting at the El-Al counter at LAX. (2) the shooting up of that synagogue (in LA?). Seems like there was another shooting in an apartment complex where 1 guy (neighbor) shoots up another guy next door. |
| Posted by: BA 2007-02-15 12:17 |
| #6 I don't know what will turn up on Sulieman's hardware, but I've got a hunch. The question is, will the gov't share any info witht the public. I ask that question for the reason that the police and FBI were very quick to announce that there is no evidence of terrorism here (pc bullsh*t). They ruled it out? How could it be ruled out? You've got five non-muslims dead, four more seriously wounded, and the shooter is a muslim. I wouldn't be so quick to rule out sudden jihad syndrome. Any infidel out there keeping a head count on the number of non muslims murdered or injured post 9-11 by muslims here in the USA? |
| Posted by: Mark Z 2007-02-15 11:58 |
| #5 Thank you, JFM. You computer jockeys are pretty clever. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-15 10:40 |
| #4 TW. When you remove a file, contents aren't erased. OS only marks the blocks as available for reuse so it is very easy, provided the OS has still not assigned the blocks to other files, to recover the contents wiuth mere software. There are shreddder programs who repeatedly overwrite on afile before deleting it but you can still recover content with hardware. However it is quiete error prone and very unrealiable for compressed files where usually the 1,000,001 byte can't be uncimhered if you miss any of the preceeding 1,000,000. On Linux we have crypted filesystems.: at boot time you have to provide the key for decrypting and no amount of forenics will recover a single bit if you don't know the key (this if laptop is stolenb, thieves will be able to get zero info from it). Of course there is still the old method of forcing the guy to confess the key. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-02-15 10:22 |
| #3 so, what will they find on the computer - 1. links to jihadi websites and al qaeeda manifestos 2. mods for Doom and Quake, links to goth sites, poems in tribute to the Columbine shooters and against athletes and preppies? 3. Some combination of the above? |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2007-02-15 09:55 |
| #2 I'm under the impression that computer forensics is so good nowadays that nothing less than running a magnet over the hard drive will keep everything from being found... and pretty quickly, too. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-02-15 08:09 |
| #1 "We are Muslims, but we are not terrorists," the boy's aunt, Ajka Omerovic, said Wednesday. She rejected any religious motive for the shooting and said the family is as mystified as anyone in a city that logged just eight homicides in 2006. How many of those eight homicides were committed by the same man at the same time? And why did the 'tard reporter feel that statistic was relevant? And anyone want to bet that any computer this guy had was purged by his relatives before the search warrant could be issued? |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2007-02-15 08:00 |