Saturday, March 17, 2007

A Relative Explanation

Six weeks before his deadly rampage at Trolley Square mall, Sulejman Talovic proudly showed three young relatives the 12-gauge shotgun, .38-caliber revolver and black backpack of ammunition he had collected...

Faced with disbelief, Talovic offered "proof." He took the teens into his basement bedroom and opened a small closet.

I've highlighted comments on a couple occasions now by Talovic's father, a man understandably in a hell I pray I'll never know, but who, in his desperate grasping to find something other than soul-rending agony, is looking in the wrong places for answers.

Let me just offer this: There is no way there will be guns stored in my house that I am unaware of. It's becoming pretty obvious there was a dynamic going on in that house and in that family that wasn't being addressed.

[Via HKL]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's a snippet from a related story, that goes a long way toward explaining what you're seeing, David:

Suljo Talovic was a kind father who was reluctant to acknowledge his son's problems, Omerovic (an uncle by marriage) said. "He never punished his boy for his troubles," he said. "Every time he blamed somebody else."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_5431036

In the paragraph before the above quote, the uncle describes how Talovic often tormented Omerovic's own son...

Of course the father didn't see this coming; he didn't WANT to.

--Cousin G.

David Codrea said...

So, cousin g-- you're saying I shouldn't dismiss sons Uday and Qusay dismembering cats in the basement as just a boyhood phase?