Chris Cannon: “I’m not a Bigoted Liar”
Chris Cannon is adding elements to the Trolley Square shooting that never happened:
Salt Lake Police are trying to put to rest two rumors about the Trolley Square Shooting. One rumor was spread by a U.S. Congressman…
Congressman Chris Cannon: “We go from a kid shouting Allah Akbar as he shoots people in Trolley Square.”
Was 18-year-old Suljmen Talovic yelling, “Allah Akbar, God is Great,” while shooting people? KSL found out: no.
Robin Snyder/SLCPD: “We have no indication he was yelling anything of that nature at all.”
Cannon’s staff struggled to distance the congressman from his own remarks:
Cannon’s spokesperson said he heard it on Fox cable news. It could have started with a video from inside Trolley Square. You hear yelling, but if you listen closely, it’s the off-duty police officer, Kenneth Hammond, yelling “Ogden Police Department,” or OPD.
Cannon’s people admitted to us that Talovic’s motives may never be known but said, “The Congressman readily acknowledges that the true motivation for this tragic act may never be known, but the mere possibility, raised in reports airing on Fox News and other outlets, that there could be an ideological motive speaks to [the] point he made on the Doug Wright show: That terror and fear know no boundaries and must be confronted wherever they threaten us.”
I don’t envy the job of someone on Cannon’s staff. It can’t be fun to try to explain away the flighty stories of a complete bigot.
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Love how he blamed it on Fox News. Since it was a complete lie, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Comment by Voice of Utah — February 22, 2007 @ 8:39 am
Chris Cannon has made unguardedly shooting off his mouth one of his signature pieces of his overall marketing package. And it seems that the majority of his voting constituents buy it — or at least tolerate it.
Comment by Reach Upward — February 22, 2007 @ 8:47 am
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,253201,00.html
Remember that story of the shooter in Salt Lake City who opened up on shoppers last week? He was killed by an off-duty cop who heard shots and ran to confront the shooter.
Eighteen-year-old Sulejmen Talovic showed up at the mall in Salt Lake and began shooting people at random. He killed five and wounded several others.
The story died as fast as the victims. You had to wonder why. Yes, I know Anna Nicole knocked all stories off the air, but usually we dig down deep when it comes to these teenage shooters. We want to know if they played “Grand Theft Auto,” if they were loners, blah, blah, blah.
This time even the papers were relatively muted in their coverage. For instance, you probably didn’t notice much coverage over the fact the shooter was Muslim, did you? No, they didn’t say much about that.
Talovic was from Bosnia. He was a Muslim. He attended a mosque in Salt Lake and he was reported to have been shouting “Allah Akbar” at the end of the shootout when he was cornered, at least according to some witnesses.
So why do we get all prissy about the fact that he was a Muslim? Do we think that European Muslims don’t do terrorism? That his Muslim religion was just another fact in all the other facts about him?
We probably certainly wish that were true, but we don’t know because nobody looks into it much. Sure, maybe some of the reason is Anna Nicole, but I sense a chill in the air coming from the Council on American-Islamic Relations and others who think it would be racist and bigoted of us to notice he was a Muslim and wonder if maybe his religion was a motivating factor in his act of terror.
The New York Times dropped a hint when it mentioned Islamic burial rites. Hmmm, the savvy reader might have said to him or herself, I just wonder what the mosque had to do with this deadly outburst?
But never mind I said it. I don’t want to get in trouble. I know it’s wrong to ask if his faith had anything to do with his killing spree. Forget I mentioned it.
That’s My Word.
Comment by Anonymous — February 22, 2007 @ 11:58 am
Anonymous,
I heard the day after the shootings about Talovic’s religion. It didn’t seem to me that they were making any extraordinary effort at keeping it quiet. Jumping to the conclusion that his religion was related to his actions may be understandable since 9/11 but that doesn’t mean it isn’t foolish. We should wait for more evidence before classifying the attack as an Islamic terrorist act.
The last thing we need is irresponsible and bigoted political leaders making up facts about the case. Cannon’s actions are inexcusable.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — February 22, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
Chris Cannon made an mistake. Why is it inexcusable? He says he heard that on the news. And in that story from Foxnews.com, it says just that. Why does it make Cannon a bigot for hearing one news story, but not getting the whole truth? Does Cannon have to be omniscient to not be a bigot?
Comment by Daniel — February 23, 2007 @ 6:49 am
Daniel, I don’t think you quite get the gist of the whole thing. Yes, Cannon made a mistake. But he does this kind of thing all of the time — to the point that it’s difficult to take him seriously.
Comment by Reach Upward — February 23, 2007 @ 11:14 am
Dan,
Cannon made the mistake while explaining why Americans can never feel safe as long as we have to worry about Islam. Republicans need this argument to be true to explain away their evisceration of the Bill of Rights and the never ending waste of America’s finest in pointless battles in Iraq.
If Cannon had paid a minimal amount of attention to news coming from his own state he’d know that the story he repeated was bogus. The problem was that the story fit his narrative so nicely that he had to include it.
Until Americans realize that scapegoating Islam isn’t going to make us any safer I’ll keep throwing out charges of bigotry when they fit.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — February 26, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
I don’t know why the Congressman backed down so easily. He had a lot of the details wrong, but in the video of the shootout with the police, you can hear someone yelling what sounds like “Allahu Akbar!” at least three times. It’s hard to make it out because when it’s used as a battle cry it’s said very quickly– for example the hijacker piloting flight 93 said it 9 times in the last 7 seconds before he crashed the plane. If he wasn’t saying “Allah Akbar,” I don’t know what he was saying… watch the video and listen for yourself, between 1:38-1:40, and again later.
Comment by Joe — March 4, 2007 @ 5:29 pm
Joe,
Your wrong. I’ve heard the video. The cops on the scene also think your wrong. Give it up…you can’t pin this one on Islam and the fact that you seem to want to do that so badly reflects poorly on you.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — March 5, 2007 @ 12:57 am
If Joe Cannon made a mistake then Suljo Talovic, the father of the Trolley Square shooter Sulejman Talovic, made a bigger one. He apologized for his son’s actions by saying that he believes someone helped him get the guns, trained him, and told him to “go shoot somebody”.
Also, a cousin, Salih Omerovic, stated that Sulejman Talovic “often attended Friday prayers at the Al-Noor mosque on 700 East in Salt Lake City”, which is only one block away from the mall.
The actions of this shooter don’t have to be proven to have been dictated to him by his Mosque in order for this to be shown to be Islamic Terrorism. He may have decided that this is what he was led to do as a pious Muslim. Or it may be that his father was correct, and that he did receive guns, training, and indoctrination from extremists. Either way, Sulejman Talovic committed an act of terrorism.
Comment by Dennis — March 20, 2007 @ 8:25 am
Dennis,
It is a stretch to say that this had anything to do with his religion…especially with more and more information coming out describing this kid’s thuggish behavior throughout his teens.
Sorry but the desire of so many on the right for this to be related to Islam is nothing more than religious bigotry for political purposes. It is ugly and foolish.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — March 20, 2007 @ 8:44 am
Well Jeremy, as always the Mannings will have the last word here. You never let facts get in the way of your opinions.
This case is more complicated than a straight out bombing where the terrorist leaves a suicide note detailing his intentions. The facts are hidden in the many articles, circumstances, and statements of those who knew this boy.
He came from a wore-torn Muslim family whose father had fought for an Islamic state. He had a history of angry and violent behavior. He had been removed from school for “looking at AK-47s online”. He attended the local Mosque, acquired weapons, and told his girlfriend (the day beforefore the shooting) that “tomorrow will be the happiest day of my life”. So he was about to commit and act of murder that was going to bring him great happiness… consistant with other Islamic terrorist’s beliefs.
There’s much, much more here. Including that “Allah Akbar” IS heard on the video (as validated by several solid sources, which is why police now say this may have been dubbed… yeah right). Feel free to spin this anyway you want Jeremy. Denial is a state with an ever-increasing population these days.
Comment by Dennis — March 20, 2007 @ 10:17 am
Dennis,
Don’t you think the police officers on the scene would have reported his exclamations of religious ecstasy if they had happened? They did report that he shouted lots of profanity but neither the victims nor police reported hearing “Allah Akbar”. The video of the event doesn’t actually support your claim either if you listen carefully. You can accuse me, the FBI, the Salt Lake Police, the media, the victims of the attack, or anyone else you want of being in denial about Talovic’s true motivations but it won’t change the fact that the evidence doesn’t support your conclusions.
There is plenty about Islam for people to criticize without commandeering this tragedy for use in political argumentation. Cannon was wrong to do it and so are you.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — March 20, 2007 @ 1:26 pm