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911 calls to police the night of the shootings at Trolley Square mall.Note: Graphic content.
The shots echoed behind the woman's voice as she hid inside a tiny closet inside the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.
Boom.
"He just keeps shooting!" a woman named Kathy whimpered over the phone to the 911 dispatcher.
"I want you guys to be as quiet as possible," the dispatcher said.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
"Please tell me what's going on," Kathy pleaded, as more shots could be heard behind her. "There's more shots."
Hiding in a closet with five other adults and a 3-year-old girl, the fear was evident in the woman's voice as the shots could be heard over the phone line. Kathy counted: four shots, five shots.
Boom.
"There's another one," she said, her voice cracking. "What the hell. ... How many rounds does he have? There's another one."
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
"How many shots was that?"
More than three hours of chilling 911 calls and radio communications between emergency dispatchers and Salt Lake City police officers were released Thursday, detailing the terror inside the Trolley Square mall the night 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic went on a shooting rampage. By the time it was over, Talovic had killed five people and injured at least a half-dozen others before dying in a shootout with officers.
Salt Lake City police released the 911 calls and radio traffic after a request from the Deseret Morning News and other news media outlets under the Government Records Access Management Act. Police and fire dispatchers working the night of Feb. 12 took approximately 641 calls in a two-hour period after the shooting first started.
Panicked employees, shoppers and people dining at restaurants inside the mall can be heard giving descriptions of Talovic's homicidal march from the parking terrace to the center of the mall itself.
"We just heard gunshots outside and people are screaming," said Rene Roberts, an employee at the Green Street Social Club.
Roberts made one of the first calls to 911 after Talovic started shooting in the west parking terrace.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. There's like, people, like, running," she said.
Killing spree
Armed with a 12-gauge shotgun, a .38-caliber handgun, a backpack full of ammunition and a bandolier of shotgun shells around his waist, Talovic opened fire at the mall. He shot and killed Jeffrey Walker, 52, in the parking terrace and wounded his 16-year-old son, Alan "AJ" Walker.
MacKenzie Flanders sobbed into the phone as she described encountering the wounded teen.
"There was shots fired and a kid came running up to our car asking for help and he was covered in blood and there were shots being fired towards us and we just drove away!" she said.
"Do you know who's been hit?" the dispatcher asked.
"I have no idea. I don't know who these people are," Flanders replied.
Another woman stayed with Walker.
"We have a kid here that was shot and there's somebody shooting up here at Trolley Square," she told 911. "I think he's shot in the head."
Police said Talovic shot Shawn Munns, 34, in the courtyard. He was able to run around to the Hard Rock Cafe.
"We have a man who has been hit. He is inside," a Hard Rock employee named Angela told the 911 dispatcher.
Meanwhile, Talovic continued his killing spree. Brad Merrill told dispatchers he heard at least 10 shots fired.
"There's a guy with a shotgun shooting up Trolley Square," he said. "I saw him with a shotgun. He shot out a window and was chasing somebody. He was running around the main floor of Trolley Square."
Police said Vanessa Quinn, 29, was shot and killed outside Bath and Body Works. She was on her way to meet her husband to purchase wedding bands.
At the Cabin Fever novelty and card shop, Talovic shot five people.Teresa Ellis, 29, was killed alongside Brad Frantz, 24. Kirsten Hinckley, 15, was also shot dead. Her mother, 44-year-old Carolyn Tuft, survived and is now hospitalized in fair condition after undergoing a series of surgeries. Stacy Hanson, 53, was also wounded.
'Please hurry!'
As police dispatchers put out the call, officers begin responding.
"He is still shooting. He is running inside Trolley Square with a shotgun," a dispatcher radios to officers.
On the line, another panicked caller was caught up in the chaos.
"He's still going, he's still going. We still hear shots, he's still going," one panicked caller tells dispatchers. "Please hurry!"
During the shooting rampage, Talovic encountered off-duty Ogden police officer Ken Hammond, who was on a date with his wife. Sarita Hammond called 911 from inside the Rodizio Grill.
"There's a guy shooting with a rifle. He shot a couple of people. I know there's at least two people shot," she said.
Sarita Hammond's voice can be heard growing more panicked as more shots are fired from inside the mall. The dispatcher tells her to lock the doors and get everyone in the restaurant away from the windows.
"My husband is an Ogden city cop. He has a gun. He's off duty. He's out there somewhere. He has a badge and gun but he's off duty," she told the police dispatcher. "There's more shots, there's more shots. We saw two people down. They were shot."
The confusion from the chaotic situation is also heard on the tapes as initially dispatchers believed there was a second gunman, based on the different suspect descriptions they were getting.
"We actually have another suspect who has not been caught yet," one dispatcher told a 911 caller. "He was carrying a revolver."
Salt Lake City police said the confusion came when some shoppers mistook Hammond for the gunman.
Inside the Rodizio Grill, another off-duty police officer called 911.
"Are you armed? Do you have your gun on you?" the dispatcher asked.
"I didn't bring my gun (with) me," the off-duty West Valley City cop said.
Police response
The voices of Salt Lake City police officers become more excited as they get inside the mall and the communications grow more chilling.
"I'm inside the mall on the west end. I hear active shooting," one officer said.
"Shots fired on the northside through the window, through the door!" another officer says a short time later.
Officers can be heard on their radios setting up a team to immediately go inside the mall and confront the gunman.
Salt Lake City Police Sgt. Andy Oblad, Sgt. Josh Scharman, detective Dustin Marshall and detective Brett Olsen were the first city officers inside the mall. Oblad met up with Hammond who moved on Talovic from the south while Scharman, Marshall and Olsen confronted him from the north.
"He's in the Pottery Barn Kids," one officer says.
A moment later, Talovic is cornered, shot and killed. All of the officers fired their weapons during the final confrontation with Talovic.
"We have one male down in the Pottery Barn," an officer radios over to dispatch. "The suspect is down."
Then, an officer tells dispatch the "suspect is obvious echo" — police code for dead. Even after Talovic was shot, anxious officers are heard telling dispatchers to send more ambulances.
"I have one, two, three, four, five down, at least five down! Cabin Fever in the mall! I need medical immediately!" one officer shouts to dispatchers.
The scope of the tragedy started to become even clearer as other officers reported more victims.
"Units be advised there is also one person shot in the Hard Rock Cafe," one dispatcher radioed over.
"I've got one echo victim top parking lot of Trolley Square," another officer reported.
Some people were also apparently injured but did not go to the hospital. A man from Rodizio Grill called dispatchers to say one of his employees was grazed in the forehead by a bullet. A woman called 911 to report a 60-year-old woman who was hit with some shrapnel in the foot. She was not taken to a hospital, either.
The wife of one of the wounded calls a dispatcher asking which hospital he was going to.
"He called me and said, 'I'm fine. I've been shot in the back,"' she said.
People in hiding
After Talovic was killed, police began a search of the mall for victims and any other gunmen.
"We're going to do a systematic clear of the complex now," an officer told dispatchers. "We're going to
leave an article from the store in the doorway to let you know it's clear."
Employees in several businesses locked themselves and their customers in closets, bathrooms, fitting rooms and storage rooms. Terry Cononelos was inside the Desert Edge Brewery.
"We're locked in the freezer. There's six of us locked in the freezer of the auxiliary kitchen," he said.
"OK, don't leave," the dispatcher told him.
"Will you call us when it's safe to leave?" he asked.
A floor below in the Sharper Image store, Scott Duyman and more than a dozen others took shelter in a back room.
"We have it barricaded with a safe," he told the dispatcher.
Dispatchers continued receiving 911 calls for the next several hours from employees locked in their stores, afraid to come out.
Cononelos called 911 again.
"We're still locked in the freezer at Trolley Square," he said, sounding clearly irritated.
Salt Lake City police said the shooting remains under investigation. Talovic's motive for the killing spree remains a mystery.
E-mail: preavy@desnews.com; bwinslow@desnews.com