AJ's story: Teen and father were Talovic's first victims

SOUTH JORDAN — First you see the black patch over Alan "AJ" Walker's left eye. It's the first sign that not long ago something very terrible happened to him.

As he talks, AJ sometimes looks to his mother, Vickie, for reassurance that he has chosen the right word to convey a thought.

At the kitchen table, Vickie and her son look at flash cards together. AJ, 16, looks at an object, starts to sound out a word, "Gar ...," then stops and looks at the picture a moment longer. "Grenade," he finally says.

In a matter of a moment on Feb. 12, AJ's life changed forever. He and his father, Jeffrey, 52, met up with Sulejman Talovic, 18, in the parking lot of Trolley Square.

Jeffrey and his son were the first to be shot by Talovic in a rampage that left six dead: Jeffrey, four others and Talovic, who was killed by police. Four more were wounded, including AJ.

Walker and his son had just finished shopping at Trolley Square and were headed home to South Jordan with a big bag of sandwiches for a night in front of the TV with Vickie and daughter Alexandra — Alex to most people.

Sometime after the shooting, Vickie would check her husband's cell phone. He had called that night at around 6:26 p.m. to say he was on his way home with food.

"I told him I loved him," Vickie recalled during an interview Friday in her home.

Vickie and Alex kept watching television while they waited.

Jeffrey and AJ were walking to their car when AJ remembers "all of a sudden" seeing someone in a trench coat come out from behind a car, as if he were hiding.

"There really wasn't any noise," AJ recalled.

Then Talovic raised a shotgun toward the Walkers. "My dad said, 'Oh, my gosh,"' while at the same time AJ didn't think the gun was real. "He did it so quickly," AJ said.

Jeffrey moved to protect his son. "He tried to defend me," AJ said.

The first blast hit AJ in the head — the next hit Jeffrey. Talovic was within one to three feet of the Walkers when he started his shooting spree that night.

For a second AJ thought his dad might be pretending to be dead. AJ was dazed and aware he was still on his feet. Instinct took over, and he ran for help. At some point, AJ was shot in the ankle, but he managed to run.

"Right then, I wasn't worried about my dad being dead," AJ said. "I was running as fast as I could."