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Monday, May 18, 2009

Records indicate shooter had history with Trolley Square

FOI at Work!
The 745 pages of FBI reports on the 18-year-old who shot nine people at Trolley Square revealed that the mall was a childhood hangout for Sulejman Talovic, who also had made racist and violent remarks long before his rampage, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. This article is based on an FOIA request Nate Carlisle filed two years ago.

When 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic walked into Trolley Square and opened fire on shoppers, he was returning to a childhood hangout, according to newly-released FBI documents.

Talovic and his family used to live one block from the mall, and one person told agents Talovic played there with his sisters as a child. Another said Talovic was at Trolley Square "every day," and that the mall "was the only place he went." Someone also recalled Talovic once got into a physical fight with someone at the mall over a video game.

The documents provide the first possible explanation for why Talovic, a Bosnian immigrant who came to the U.S. at the age of 9, chose the mall as the site of his rampage. They also detail racist, violent statements made by Talovic -- among them that he planned to shoot white people like Serbs, had been a member of the Klu Klux Klan, and shot someone in a drug deal gone bad.

More here.

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