Police tapes show initial confusion followed by quick action
Listen to audio dispatch tapes
By Russ Rizzo
The Salt Lake Tribune
From initial reports of a man firing a shotgun inside Trolley Square Mall to an officer’s confirmation that the shooter was dead, police dispatch tapes released Wednesday from the Feb. 12 mall massacre offer stark look at what officers faced as they responded to the city’s worst mass killing in a decade.
The recordings of communication between officers and dispatchers on Salt Lake City police’s main channel start with a report of shooting at Trolley Square near Sharper Image.
“There’s someone that’s shot in the parking garage,” a dispatcher alerted officers.
Forty-nine seconds after the initial call to units, a dispatcher Trolley Square Shootings: Police Radio Traffic.
“The suspect is still carrying a shotgun,” the dispatcher said. “He’s a male, white, heading eastbound with dark hair.”
That was officers’ first description of 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic, who carried a shotgun and handgun into the mall and opened fire, killing five people and wounding four others before dying in a barrage of police gunfire.
Twenty six seconds later, officers learned the shooter was carrying a backpack, which officers would learn later contained about 100 rounds of ammunition.
Nearly a minute later, a dispatcher announced this to officers en route: “Be advised [the gunman] is still shooting. He is running inside Trolley Square with a shotgun.”
Witnesses later said Talovic walked methodically through the mall, unleashing shotgun fire and calmly reloading to continue firing at random.
A minute later, the first officer to call in from the scene confirmed that a boy had been shot in the parking lot.
“It’s a 16-year-old male shot in the head, conscious and breathing,” the officer said over the radio.
Almost a minute later, an officer describes “active shooting in the mall,” as a dispatcher alerts responding officers that an officer heading to the scene is in plain clothes.
Four minutes into the ordeal, an officer calls in to announce he is forming a “contact team” on the east side of the mall. He uses the department’s emergency code, 91, saying that witnesses have spotted the shooter in the center of the mall.
When responding to an active shooting, officers are trained to form a group of three or four and confront the danger quickly to prevent more casualties, Salt Lake City police spokesman Jeff Bedard said.
Thirty seconds later, almost four minutes and 30 seconds into the ordeal, an officer radioed to say he has seen the shooter.
“I see one male inside, to the left side, male, probably 6 feet tall, brown hair, mustache, wearing a plaid red and gray shirt,” the officer says. “I couldn’t see a gun.”
Seconds later, an officer reports shots fired near a window through a door. Then a report of a “man down” in a parking lot.
Six minutes and three seconds after the initial call, a dispatcher confirms that an emergency has been called, using the police code 91.
Five seconds after that, an officer calls and reports: “We have one male down in the Pottery Barn.... Suspect is down.”
The dispatch tapes show the confusion police faced even after Talovic lay dead in the Pottery Barn Kids following a shoot-out with officer.
Because the first officer to respond was an off-duty Ogden police officer in plain clothes eating dinner in the mall with his wife, witnesses calling 911 to report a second shooter upstairs in the mall.
“We have reports of a second shooter carrying a .45 [caliber] handgun on the second level, unknown location,” an officer says.
Another officer radios to warn that the man could be an off-duty officer.
“There is an Ogden police officer with a .45 [caliber handgun] ... He’s in plain clothes.”
That officer, Ken Hammond, was later hailed a hero by city officials for confronting Talovic while police officers hurried to the scene. Hammond and three Salt Lake City officers opened fire on Talovic, killing him.
Dispatch recordings from the aftermath of the shooting spree also offer chilling details of the carnage encountered by police officers and paramedics as they entered the scene of the massacre.
“I have one, two, three, four, five at least five down, [inside] Cabin Fever, in the mall, need medical immediately,” an officer said over his radio as officers entered the mall after Talovic fell dead.
Copyright 2007 Salt Lake Tribune