Police on Tuesday identified an 18-year-old Bosnian immigrant as the gunman who killed five people in a Utah shopping mall before he was shot dead by police.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said detectives were still struggling to find a motive behind Solejman Talovic's bloody assault on the historic Trolley Square complex on Monday.
Talovic, whose family arrived in the US about three or four years ago, was killed after being cornered by an off-duty police officer celebrating Valentine's Day early with his wife when the teenager's killing spree began.
Burbank said Talovic was armed with a shotgun and a pistol and was carrying several rounds of ammunition in a backpack and a waistband.
Burbank said the quick thinking of police officer Ken Hammond from Ogden, north of Salt Lake City, cut short Talovic's rampage, saving "numerous" lives.
OFF DUTY
Hammond was off duty and having an early Valentine's dinner with his wife. He left the restaurant after hearing gunfire.
"The officer contained him until other officers arrived and resolved the situation," Burbank said.
"There's no question his quick actions saved the lives of numerous other people," Burbank said.
Hammond played down descriptions of himself as a hero.
"I was just the one that was there," he told a news conference.
Police said a 52-year-old man, two 28-year-old women, a 24-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl were killed in the attack.
Talovic's aunt, Ajka Onerovic, emerged briefly from the family's house to say relatives had no idea why the young man attacked so many strangers.
"He was a such a good boy. I don't know what happened," she told the Salt Lake City television station KSL.
PHILADELPHIA MURDERS
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, police said a shareholder who believed that he had been defrauded by an investment company lured three of the firm's executives to an after-hours meeting on Monday night where he shot them before taking his own life.
The authorities said that the gunman, Vincent Dortch, 44, of Newark, Delaware, bound his victims with duct tape in a conference room and told them that that they had "a minute or two" to pray before he drew a semi-automatic pistol and shot each of them in the head at close range.
A fourth member of the firm, critically wounded in the incident, alerted police after wriggling free of his bonds and splicing together the wires of a telephone that was damaged in a confrontation that preceded the shooting.
Investigators said that they were still trying to determine whether or not the executives with the company, Watson International, had defrauded Dortch or other investors.
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