Alleged Utah Mall Shooter Is Bosnian Refugee. Soon there will be many more Iraqi ones?

ARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - The Bosnian teen that killed five shoppers at a Salt Lake City mall fled the war in his homeland at age 10, neighbors and friends said Wednesday. Sulejman Talovic, an 18-year-old immigrant fatally shot by police after Monday's rampage, was only 4 when he and his mother fled their village of Talovici on foot after Serbian forces overran it in 1993, people close to the family told The Associated Press.

Talovic lived as a refugee in Bosnia from 1993 to 1998, when his family moved to the United States, they said.

During that period, he spent some time in Srebrenica, the northeastern enclave where up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in 1995 by Serb forces loyal to former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic. It was the worst massacre of civilians since World War II. The teen gunman left Srebrenica two years before the massacre, but acquaintances suggested it might have left an indelible mark on the quiet little boy they knew.

That's why I'm convinced the war did this in Utah,” said Murat Avdic, a friend of the family. “There cannot be any other reason.” Avdic, 54, said that when the village of Talovici fell, the family split. “Sulejman and his mother walked to Srebrenica, and from there were later evacuated by a U.N. convoy,” he said. “Suljo, the father, headed over the mountains and forests with his comrades as well. Many left the village, but only a few made it.”

Avdic described the family as “very normal, very decent and quiet.”

Up to 200,000 people were killed and 1.8 million others lost their homes in Bosnia's 1992-95 war

Patrick Comment

One of the worries I have as a new arrival to American Life (five years) is that all too often people are not allowed to vent or disagree with the common view and pent up feelings are sometimes worse if bottled up. There is a good line in West Side Story when the friendly corner storekeeper asks why the youngsters have to ‘bust’ so often to express themselves. In other parts of the world it is more allowed to vent and it is accepted. The French students last year for example and the Muslims in London. Name calling and demonstrating is more common. For sure there is not enough to help the mentally ill and all too often they are dealt with in swift “Bonny and Clyde “ fashion. No one cares as long as it is not one of theirs and invariably it is the poor mentally ill ones with little or no family support that are ‘eliminated’. A naked man in Pensacola running the street and banging his head against shop windows was thus dealt with? This boy in Utah had issues and the work ethic so boldly championed here would not have allowed for anyone to take the time to analyze him quite probably. Below here are three different comments from blogs about the above incident that really are food for thought? We can expect another bloodbath when Iraq divides itself and there will be more refugees to arrive here and to have to ‘be quiet’ about their history and their ‘issues’ as they are in America now? Be careful who you silence I say. At least the noisy Muslims in London have to show their colors. Is it better for the ones who would do harm to ‘silently make their evil plans’ as was stated by Richard Burton in “War of the Worlds?

Blog Comment 1.

(“Here’s a story that really happened, A neighbor went on the rampage and took a few pot shots at one of my sons,(One of the bullets fired by this nut just grazed his face) anyway after shooting up the neighborhood, he had a bullet proof vest on, jumped into his car and the cops got him down the road. This guy worked as a security officer too. He was from the Fiji Islands, when the cops contacted my son about going to court , we then found out that this clown was an AMERICAN CITZEN and he could NOT be deported, so now he sits in prison for the next 25 years and this country has to support this creep!!!! Thanks to our U.S. Government!!!!! Oh he was also fully armed to the T as one of the cops later told us!!!”)

Blog Comment 2.

(“So the war of the Bosnians, Serbs and Croats, still smolder. The murderous Nazi like Serbs, and the Croats were not much different in the past. 8000 Muslim men and boys were murdered...BEFORE all the talk of Islamic Terrorism.....and I am sure that massacre plays a part in the Islamic Worlds hatred for non believers.

I am not in love with Moslems or their fanatical religion, but I am not in love with so called Christians who support murdering regimes, as those who caused that war, of the battles in Central and South America.. We always seem to support the fascists....

THE BOY was mentally ill. No, it’s not an excuse, but an explanation. Were there no warning signs??? DIDNT teachers or family notice? Were they ignored? Was he on medication? Did his mental illness think these murders would avenge the death of his countrymen. We will not know. He is dead.”)

Blog Comment 3.

(“I'M TIRED OF THE INVASION OF EUROPEANS COMING TO MY LAND..!!! WE ARE VIRTUALLY THE TOILET OF THE WORLD: WE TOOK ALL THE CRAP FROM ITALY, ENGLAND, GERMANY, RUSSIA, POLAND, IRELAND..AND NOW THE REFUGEES FROM BOSNIA..MORE EUROPEAN CRAP FOR OUR TOILET..!! AND IF YOU ASK, I AM 100% CHEROKEE INDIAN..!!”)