Off-duty officer prevented larger rampage, police say:
Date: Feb 14, 2007 8:31 AM
PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE: 2007.02.14
SECTION: News
PAGE: A13
ILLUSTRATION: Photo: Douglas C. Pizac, The Associated Press / Ogden,
Utah,police officer Ken Hammond, above, was having dinner with his
pregnant wife when he confronted Sulejmen Talovic who had fired on
shoppers in a Salt Lake City shopping mall, killing five. ;
DATELINE: SALT LAKE CITY
BYLINE: Paul Foy
SOURCE: The Associated Press
WORD COUNT: 592

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Off-duty officer prevented larger rampage, police say: Teen gunmen kills
5 at mall in Utah

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SALT LAKE CITY – With a bandolier of shotgun shells under his trench
coat and a backpack of ammunition on his shoulder, Sulejmen Talovic
stepped out of his car Monday night at a crowded shopping mall and
immediately began shooting.

An off-duty police officer having an early St. Valentine’s Day dinner
with his wife was credited last night with helping stop a rampage in a
crowded shopping mall by an 18-year-old gunman who shot five people to
death before he was killed by police.

A day after the shooting, investigators struggled to figure out why a
trench-coated Mr. Talovic opened fire on shoppers with a supremely calm
look on his face.

The teenager wanted “to kill a large number of people” and probably
would have killed many more if not for the off-duty officer, police
Chief Chris Burbank said.

Ken Hammond, an off-duty officer from Ogden, north of Salt Lake City,
jumped up from his seat at a restaurant after hearing gunfire and
cornered the gunman, exchanging fire with him until other officers
arrived, Chief Burbank said.

“There is no question that his quick actions saved the lives of numerous
other people,” the police chief said.

Police said it was not immediately clear who fired the shot that killed
Mr. Talovic.

Mr. Talovic had a backpack full of ammunition, a shotgun and a
.38-calibre pistol, police said. Investigators knew little about him,
except than he lived in Salt Lake City with his mother, the police chief
said. He was enrolled in numerous city schools before withdrawing in
2004, the school district said.

“I feel like I was there and did what I had to do,” Officer Hammond told
reporters. After spotting the gunman, he told his pregnant wife to take
cover in the restaurant and went to confront the suspect.

Mr. Talovic’s aunt, Ajka Onerovic, emerged briefly from the family’s
house to say relatives had no idea why the young man attacked so many
strangers. She said the family moved to Utah from Bosnia.

“He was a such a good boy. I don’t know what happened,” she told Salt
Lake City television station KSL.

Mr. Talovic drove to the Trolley Square shopping centre — a century-old
former trolley barn with winding hallways, brick floors and wrought-iron
balconies, and immediately killed two people, followed by a third victim
as he came through a door, Chief Burbank said. Five other people were
then shot in a gift shop, he said.

Four people who were wounded remained hospitalized last night, two in
critical condition, two serious.

Outside the mall, candles and flowers were left as memorials to the
victims, who were identified as Jeffrey Walker, 52, Vanessa Quinn, 29,
Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Teresa Ellis, 29, and Brad Frantz, 24.

Officer Hammond’s boss, Ogden police Chief Jon Greiner, said the state
Senate wants to honour him.

“Thank goodness he was there,” said Chief Greiner, who is also a state
senator. “You don’t want to ever say it’s good we were there and killed
somebody, but it’s probably good someone was there.”

In an unrelated shooting, an investor who killed three people and
himself at a marketing company in Philadelphia was upset about losing
money in a failed real-estate venture and told his victims to “say your
prayers” before he opened fire, police said yesterday.

Vincent J. Dortch, 44, of Newark, Delaware, brought two handguns to a
Monday night meeting he had organized under the pretense that he had
another investor who wanted in on the venture, authorities said.

Minutes after the meeting started, Mr. Dortch told his victims: “You
have a minute or two to say your prayers,” police Insp. Joseph Fox said.

He forced one of two other investors to bind four others with duct tape,
then assured the two investors that he did not have a problem with them.

The two investors apparently were allowed to leave the room, and Mr.
Dortch opened fire, hitting the four bound men, police said. Mr. Dortch
then said, “I have to finish this job,” and shot three of the men again
in the head at point-blank range, Insp. Fox said.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !