Tonight, a lone gunman with no clear motive opened fire in Trolley Square, a popular, up-scale mall about thirty miles from my house. Five victims dead, several hospitalized, and the gunman dead. Random. Senseless. Bizarre, and kind of surreal that this just happened about five miles from where I work. We go to this mall to have dinner a few times a year.
I feel for the families of the victims, and yet perversely I’m most curious about the motive of the shooter. What possible explanation could their be for walking into a shopping mall and gunning down random customers?
I don’t get it.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
Because so many people are searching for it and this page ended up on the front page of Google when people search for “Trolley Square Shooting Victims”, let me share the info most people are looking for.
ID of the shooter: Sulejman Talovic, 18, Bosnian refugee living in the US. He left Bosnia two years before the massacre in his home village, though some relatives are certain this had a profound effect on him and factored into his killing spree. Yes, he is Moslem, but his family escaped here to get away from the war and turmoil of their home country and live in peace.
Gunman stopped by: Kenneth Hammond, an off-duty police officer from Ogden (a town quite a few miles north) exercising his right to carry a concealed weapon in Utah. He was on a date with his wife. Hammond saw the shooter, told his wife to get away, and was shot at by Talovic. He returned fire with his Kimber sidearm, and then with the help of local police eventually killed the gunman.
Killed: Jeffrey Walker (52) Vanessa Quinn (28) Kirsten Hinckley (15) Teresa Ellis (28) Brad Franz (24)
Wounded: Carolyn Tuft (44) Stacy Hanson (53) Shawn Munns (34) Alan Jeffery Walker (16)
18-year-old
The press has made sure to announce that the shooter was an “18-year old male in a trenchcoat”.
Why is the trenchcoat so important that it gets included in every news report? Do we hear the same detail repeated over and over again if a shooter is wearing blue jeans or a red shirt? Every time we revisit this territory, it seems like some Congressman wants to pass a new law further depreciating the rights of ordinary citizens and doing absolutely nothing to prevent these kinds of tragedies.
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Matthew P. Barnson
There’s a reason
There’s a reason why a lot of shooters wear trenchcoats, but not for any of the psycho-babble motivations that a lot of talking heads would have you think.
Its practical. You can hide your gun (particularly a rifle or shotgun) better beneath a trench then beneath a sweater or hoodie.
I can’t leave this alone…
I just can’t leave this alone, because it’s such huge news here locally. On another forum, I posted the following response to a poster who insinuated that video games were to blame for this shooting:
Soandso wrote:
I am that “type of people”. A happy father of four, well-adjusted, working 40 hours a week in a stable job. I fly model airplanes on weekends with other flying buddies. I don’t own a gun, but will strongly defend the right of every law-abiding American to own one. I lean a little to the left in politics. I’m an atheist. I love my wife. I wipe my very young son’s butt because he hasn’t quite mastered the art yet. I play first-person-shooter games from time to time, though not often enough anymore to be very good against the online competition. There was a time a few years ago when I was quite good and played at least an hour, usually two hours per day.
I have never had the urge to run up to someone and shoot them in the face, anymore than chess players have an urge to run up to someone and bash them in the head with an oversize chess piece.
This normal, stable person derives pleasure from such games. Unreal Tournament 2004 was simply awesome. And it had giblets of gore galore. Here’s the question for you: why WOULDN’T a normal, stable person enjoy such a game?
I think the statement you’re fishing for is “I don’t understand how normal, stable people actually derive pleasure from such games”. Sure, I agree with you. You don’t understand it. Just like I don’t understand how people can enjoy the game ‘Go’, which just annoys me. I don’t like to play basketball because I tend to sprain my ankle from all the jumping. I find Sudoku very dull.
Here’s a hint to help you understand: different people have different tastes. I enjoy shooters, you don’t. You don’t need to insult and defame the millions of people who do enjoy a game by deciding that we’re all just one step away from becoming gun-toting Rambos intent on destruction.
And I think that people who blame psycophathy on games are ignorant. Some psycopathic people have played video games which figured into their fantasies. Some serial murderers watched pornography. Some rapists played “Go”.
Your statement is like saying that most psycopaths eat bread, therefore those who eat bread are probably psycopaths. It doesn’t make any sense, but when it comes to a minority — like game players of shooting games — it’s really easy to demonize them, just like you did.
He fixates on something stupid and does it.
Think about it this way: do you remember the movie “Ghostbusters”? Near the end, the villain says “Choose and perish”. Now, it wasn’t the intention of Gozer the Gozarian to allow her victims to live. It was only her intention that her victims choose the form by which they would die.
Whatever that 18-year-old’s reasons were for shooting up the mall 30 miles from my house, whatever fantasies or strange desires fed his dark destiny, it wasn’t the video games which caused him to do it. It was his choice.
Please don’t tell me you are serious about this “sign of the times” baloney. Are you one of those whackos who gets off by hoping that we’ll start to annihilate ourselves so that Jesus will show up to save us?
I submit that this shooter WAS a copycat of very similar crimes which happen on a regular basis across the USA. No videogame required.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Trolley Square Shooting
It’s so easy to dismiss this as some deranged, mentally unstable person, let me however add my .02, when a society reduces the value of human life in so many ways, look around, the result is that taking a life become trivial. No easy solutions to a very real problem ! Do viloent games contribute ? Maybe. Do graphic Hollywwod movies contribute ? Maybe. It’s hard to change attitude, but we need to start!
Do what…
Do graphic video games conribute? Do Movies? Do what…
I am sure that all of these things can contribute. I don’t need a video game to feed me my violence (although I am one of those who love the first person shooter – The whole reason I bought my x-box). I can simply turn on the 5 o’clock news here in the Washington DC area. I would be willing to bet that a good 50% of the news coverage has something to do with a murder, robbery, or extortion. It is very easy to say that movies and video games create monsters out of people. How about those people’s upbringing? Where are the kids parents when they were being raised? I am against restricting the movie makers, video game makers, etc. from practicing their art. I am for a parent stepping up and “parent” their children rather then taking an easy way out and be the kids “buddy” by letting them participate in activities that they shouldn’t be involved in.
I can agree, but it really depends on the attitude that you are referring to. If by a change you mean that parents take control of their kids – then yes I am all for it. Parents should be aware of what their kids are doing, where they are, and who they are with. They should not be afraid to stand up to their kids and be their parent. Show them structure, give them the sense to know what is right and wrong, give them morals, and teach them respect. Then maybe Little Timmy will know the difference between playing a game that strengthens eye hand coordination & broadens imagination and creativity vs. feeling that it is okay to pick up a rifle / shot gun and run down real people.
/ rant
Least violence ever…
We live in an age with the lowest rate of per capita violent crime that we have ever known. It is safer to live in most cities in the USA right now than it ever has been since we began tracking crime statistics. Yet we see more of the violence, and think that we are reducing the value of human life.
Interesting irony, that.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Power of the press
Access and power that the press / media have these days is also unprecedented. The digital age we live in floods our abilities to report and receive news. A reporter who is in inbedded with troops in Iraq is able to give live updates during battles. We are also able to spread the news about any other violence through email alerts, news bulletins, radio, etc. Nothing like a little sensory overload.