Blood Bath in Salt Lake

arbilad · Head Chef

Blood Bath in Salt Lake

bokbadok · Senior Bucketkeeper

RE: Bath in Salt Lake

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

RE: Blood Bath in Salt Lake

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Wonder what's the story of the guy who went crazy...

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Was anyone any of you know directly impacted by this tragic event?

I'm not familiar with the area... I wonder was it over quickly, or did the criminal just randomly shoot at people once in a while until the police showed up? I didn't really follow the story when I heard about it on the news, just that it was in SLC.

TitusTodd · Senior Member

It sounds like he just starting shooting random people in Trolley Square one after another. I don't think it took place over more than a few minutes. Having been there several times over the years I can picture the place while reading about the incident. It is good they stopped him when they did because he had a lot more ammo and another gun.

-- Edited by TitusTodd at 12:15, 2007-02-13

Homestar Runner · Senior Member

Stuff like this helps me stay serious about my conceal-carry permit.

arbilad · Head Chef

Apparently the gunman was a muslim from Bosnia.

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

A 15 year old girl that was shot and killed is a classmate of my nephew.

Pt314 · Senior Member

Very scary stuff. Trolley Square is only a couple of blocks away from where I live. I walk down there every once in a while.

I heard about it while I was at my student ward activity. Didn't know what happened in more detail until I saw it on TV last night.

It's very sad.

rayb · Hot Air Balloon

Muslim?

Strange that wasn't newsworthy...

Mahonri · Senior Bucketkeeper

During my "UTAH" years as a student I lived in a home on the east side of 8th East between 2nd and 3rd South. We regularly hung out at Trolly Sqaure and did the spaghetti factory at least once a month. (cheap date)

Pt314 · Senior Member

Some sort of Bosnian refugee group here in Salt Lake are saying that this is a reason why they need more government paid mental health help.

link

Good thing that the off duty Police Officer was there, and held him off before the SWAT arrived with his sidearm and one magazine of ammo.
link

-- Edited by Pt314 at 15:40, 2007-02-14

arbilad · Head Chef

I wonder why everyone is so loathe to call this an incident of terrorism. Now, I'm not saying that he is connected with radical muslim terrorist groups. We have absolutely no clue one way or the other. But totally aside from that, what this person did was terrorism. He brought terror to a large number of people. This was not a crime of passion. He wanted to kill a large number of people. In the reports they say that he was totally calm as he was shooting everyone, which also eliminates the possibility of this being a crime of passion.
He wanted to kill a large number of people to make a statement or exact revenge for something. Is that not the definition of terrorism?
So, he is by definition, a muslim terrorist. That doesn't mean that he's connected with any organized group necessarily. But the fact that he is a muslim is well established. I think I just successfully proved that he was a terrorist. Why do we shy away from that label so much?

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

Well, by that standard arbilad, any act of violence or horrific crime would have to be defined as terrorism. Perhaps authorities are loathe to label it terrorism because they do not know if it was merely the act of a person who went nuts or if he had ulterior motives with the intent to cause panic in the population and/or to disrupt infrastructure.

Did what he do have that effect? Sure. But so did what those idiots advertising for some Adult Swim show, with the boxes they set out in Boston locations. They placed things that looked suspicious all around in public places (without permits) that ended up causing a panic because no one knew what they were. They are probably more guilty of doing a terrorist-like act than a guy who goes on a shooting rampage because he has lost his sanity (if that is the reason).

I think terrorism as we see reported in the media may be better thought of as political terrorism. In other words, there is a political or ideologic root to the use of the violence. I'm sure that for the parties or forces that had sabatoge or attacks done against them by resistance groups or irregular forces say in WWII (like what partisans or underground resistance groups did to their enemies), they would and probably did consider it terrorism... just used a different name. That is also probably why captured partisans or resistance members did not have the same treatments afforded them as actual enemy soldiers. I think this is probably the way the VC were viewed and treated for the most part during Vietnam (by both sides of that war... the north used them as cannon fodder in the south until the organization was essentially destroyed).

So, the authorities don't want to hastily indicate it is the act of a political terrorist and end up causing a huge, massive panic in the population at large. I think that is wise. Honestly, what was the first thing that went through your mind when you found out the perp here was muslim? Maybe something along the lines of sleeper cell member?

arbilad · Head Chef

Did anyone claim responsibility immediately for the twin towers? Everyone was on Bush's case for blaming Al Quaeda; it was only much later that they acknowledged responsibility.
Otherwise, this has all the earmarks of a terrorist attack. There's even a mosque (really an old house that they bought and painted blue) literally a few minutes walk from Trolley Square. From all the descriptions of his face and demeanor during the attack, he didn't seem insane (other than that I consider radical Islam to be a form of insanity). Plus, his father remarked that he thinks his son was trained to do it, provided with weapons to do it, and sent to do it.
There was that muslim who ran down jews in his car in San Francisco last year. He self identified as a terrorist, but the incident wasn't reported as terrorism.
I wouldn't mind so much, it's just that the government loves to claim success in its anti-terrorism measures, pointing at the lack of terrorist incidents. They still happen, but they're called something else. And all the while the government tells us that it's making us safer.

Cat Herder · Understander of unimportant things

arbilad wrote:

There was that muslim who ran down jews in his car in San Francisco last year. He self identified as a terrorist, but the incident wasn't reported as terrorism.

Well, I see the point, but someone acting on their own who self-identifies with the ideologies of terrorist organizations but has no tie to them probably doesn't really cut the mustard as what is conceptualized as terrorist activity.