Police release Trolley Square final report

Rich Quinn already knew how his wife, Vanessa, died.

"Then you read it in simple English and it's kind of painful," he said Tuesday, the day Salt Lake City police released their final report into the Trolley Square massacre.

Although the report details what happened the tragic night of Feb. 12, the 10-page report — supplemented with 32 pages of diagrams and evidence logs — does not offer much that wasn't already known. The report was based on extensive interviews by homicide detectives with relatives, friends, co-workers and teachers.

The biggest question, "Why did it happen?" remained unanswered.

"Surprisingly, law enforcement was able to learn relatively little about Sulejman Talovic and his motive for committing these atrocities," the report says.

Rich Quinn said he was grateful for the police department's efforts.

"To try to get some answers even though nobody expected to find any, I was extremely impressed," he said.

The report was released to the victims' families and the survivors during a meeting Tuesday morning at the U.S. Attorney's Office. The families of the victims met with police officers and other first responders.

"It was just a very real one-on-one personal kind of thing," said Ken Hammond, the off-duty Ogden police officer who got into a shootout with Talovic. "To be able to see family members of the victims, it made it that much more real and personal."

Out of respect for the families, Hammond said he would not reveal what was said in that meeting.

Talovic, 18, shot and killed Jeffrey Walker, Vanessa Quinn, Teresa Ellis, Brad Frantz and Kirsten Hinckley and wounded four others after he randomly opened fire on unsuspecting shoppers both in and around Trolley Square. He was armed with a Mossburg 12-gauge pump action shotgun with pistol grip and a Smith and Wesson .38-caliber five-shot Revolver.

He was shot and killed in a gun battle a short time later with Salt Lake City Police Sgts. Andy Oblad, Josh Scharman and detectives Dustin Marshall and Brett Olsen and off-duty Ogden police officer Ken Hammond.

One new detail revealed in the report was that Talovic was shot 15 times by police. Oblad fired twice at Talovic after the gunman first fired his shotgun at the officer. Oblad and Hammond faced Talovic together from one direction.