She and the others listened to gunfire ring through Trolley Square. And waited.
BOOM.
"There's five more! Four more!" Cathy tells the dispatcher, weeping.
"I know," the dispatcher says. "You're doing a good job staying calm for me."
Cathy tries to quiet the others: her 3-year-old daughter; a man frantic at the thought of his children in the mall; a woman writhing in pain, her foot "nicked" by a pellet from the killer's shotgun.
"You guys, if they hear us in here, we're screwed," Cathy snaps.
That was just one call.
"Covered in blood": Hundreds of others dialed 911 on Feb. 12, the night 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic arrived at Trolley Square mall with a shotgun, pistol and a backpack full of ammunition, and began shooting shoppers. At times, callers' voices cracked and quivered, though many remained calm.
Some reported they saw the gunman or someone shot. Others could hear gunfire.
Customers and store employees locked themselves inside businesses; many worried because the doors or walls were made of glass. Others hid in back rooms with a safe or refrigerator pushed against the door.
A manager and another person were holed up in a storage area at Brookstone, while 16 or 17 people packed into a room in Sharper Image, callers said.
Inside the Hard Rock Cafe, on the north side of the mall, people tended to 34-year-old Shawn Munns. He had been shot in the back and an arm outside the mall and ran to the restaurant.
"We have a man who has been hit; he is inside," the caller says. "We would like someone to come to our service door."
Outside the mall, a woman sees 16-year-old A.J. Walker, shot in the head and ankle, stumbling toward her.
"There were shots fired and a kid came running up to our car asking for help and he was covered in blood and there were shots being fired towards us and we just drove away," the woman told a dispatcher.
Another caller sees A.J.'s father, Jeff Walker, 53, lying face down in the top level of the west parking terrace. He was fatally injured. "We got in our car and are leaving," the caller says, sirens blaring in the background.
"I'm scared": Worried friends and family called about loved ones inside the mall.
One caller, the mother of a woman in Williams-Sonoma, asked how many police were arriving and what instructions she should give her daughter.
"Are the officers going from store to store, and how will the officers know to look in this bathroom in Williams-Sonoma?" the mother asked.
A crucial caller: Sarita Hammond, the pregnant wife of off-duty Ogden police officer Kenneth Hammond. He became the first cop to confront shooter Talovic.
"There's a guy shooting with a rifle," she tells 911. At least two people have been shot, she said, but she didn't know where the gunman was.
Then she tells the dispatcher: ''My husband's an Ogden City police officer.
''He has a gun and badge; he's wearing jeans and a green shirt with a blue stripe on it,'' he has black hair, Sarita Hammond added.
"Oh my God, I'm scared," she later said.
Salt Lake City police have credited Kenneth Hammond with preventing Talovic from killing more people, and have said Sarita Hammond helped ensure other police didn't mistake her husband for a suspect.
The recordings show an off-duty West Valley City officer called from Rodizio Grill.
"I don't have my gun on me or nothing," the officer said. He asked the dispatcher what was happening and said he would try to keep the people inside the restaurant safe.
"The worst call": Dispatchers, meanwhile, did their best to string together conflicting information. Many witnesses described Hammond, or Talovic with a handgun as well as a shotgun, and dispatchers began telling callers there may be two shooters. For much of the night, police looked for both.
It would be determined later that Talovic used a 12-gauge shotgun and .38-caliber pistol. Hammond had a .45-caliber semi-automatic.
Talovic would be described as white and as Latino; wearing a black, or tan, or "Army-greenish-tannish" coat; in his late teens or early 20s; and toting a backpack. Dispatchers logged the information, all of the while pressing their callers for more details.
"Any facial hair, anything like that?"
"You know, I was too busy trying to f------ get away from him," one caller said.
The horror and magnitude of the shooting did not escape the dispatchers, professionals whose job it is to respond to emergencies every day.
"Oh, my gosh, this is the worst call I've ever probably taken," one dispatcher tells a caller.
She later added, "It all seems so surreal. You don't think it's going to happen here, you know?"
Police storm the mall: Patrol Sgt. Andy Oblad entered the mall from the south and joined Kenneth Hammond in exchanging rounds with Talovic.
Sgt. Josh Scharman and detectives Brett Olsen and Dustin Marshall, all gang detectives and SWAT team members, entered Trolley Square from the north and shot and killed Talovic in Pottery Barn Kids.
After Talovic fell dead, an officer radioed: "I have one, two, three, four, five at least five down, [inside] Cabin Fever, in the mall, need medical immediately."
From Talovic's first shot to his death, just seven minutes elapsed.
Shoppers, many still hiding in restaurant freezers, behind bus boy carts and in stairwells, storage rooms and restrooms, called 911 repeatedly to find out if it was safe to leave.
The dispatchers' responses were the same: stay put, don't move. There may be a second shooter and we don't know where he is. The officers will find you when it's safe to come out.
Once officers secured the mall, paramedics rushed in to help shooting victims.
Munns and the Walkers were shot first. Vanessa Quinn, 29, was fatally shot in front of Bath & Body Works. Five people were shot in or near the gift shop Cabin Fever: Kirsten Hinckley, 16; Teresa Ellis, 29; and her boyfriend, Brad Frantz, 24, all died. Stacy Hanson, 53, was wounded, as was Hinckley's mother, 44-year-old Carolyn Tuft.
A fight for records: The recordings were the subject of a brief dispute between the city and journalists. During the week of the shooting, the Salt Lake City Police Department immediately denied written record requests filed by The Salt Lake Tribune and other news organizations, saying the calls were private and part of an ongoing investigation into the shooting.
Mayor Rocky Anderson said he believed the calls were public record and intervened to have them disclosed.
Salt Lake City police said Thursday the almost two hours of 911 recordings represent calls taken by seven dispatchers during the incident's first 30 minutes.
Talovic, who came to the U.S. from war-torn Bosnia at about age 10, will be buried in his home country on Saturday.
lrosetta@sltrib.com
ncarlisle@sltrib.com
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Salt Lake City police on Thursday supplied about 3 1/2 hours of 911 and police dispatch recordings. Some callers identified themselves; some did not; some gave only first names.
The recordings were transcribed by Tribune staff members: Jennifer Barrett, Jason Bergreen, Jay Drew, Steve Gehrke, Mike Gorrell, Brent Israelsen, Derek Jensen, Greg Lavine, Steve Luhm, Julia Lyon, Cathy McKitrick, Russ Rizzo and Jeremiah Stettler.
After Talovic fell dead, an officer radioed: "I have one, two, three, four, five at least five down, [inside] Cabin Fever, in the mall, need medical immediately."
''I have one, two, three, four, five at least five down, [inside] Cabin Fever, in the mall, need medical immediately.''
-Law enforcement officer in a radio call from Trolley Square on the night of the shooting.
THE 911 CALLS
Stephen Hinckley, the father of 15 year-old victim Kirsten Hinckley sits anxiously in the back of a Sheriff's cruiser during the course of the shooting aftermath.
A caller reporting shots fired at Trolley Square
"I know. You're doing a good job staying calm for me.
Police dispatcher
