Posted on 01/10/2011 6:51:58 PM PST by kristinn
Reporting from Tucson — The parents of Jared Lee Loughner, accused of shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people, were huddled in seclusion in their Tucson home Monday night, his father crying and his mother so shaken she could not get out of bed, a neighbor told The Times.
As the sun was beginning to set Monday, Randy Loughner called his neighbor, retired gasoline truck driver Wayne Smith, 70, to ask him to get their mail. Smith, who is not particularly close to the Loughners, grabbed the mail and was invited inside.
"They're in there now," Smith said in a subsequent interview with The Times. "They're both in there crying. He's crying and hanging on to me and she's not even out of bed."
Smith described the Loughners as very private and said they knew few people on their street, although they had lived in the neighborhood since before Jared, 22, was born. He said Jared was their only child. Smith said Loughner's mother, Amy, had a good job with good retirement and pay, and Randy was a stay-at-home dad who liked to work on cars.
"He worshipped the boy," Smith said.
SNIP
All three wept together outside on Saturday. "We stood right out there and cried for an hour. I'm a softie," Smith said. "A man needs compassion. He's broken up about his son, but also about all those people who died."
Smith said the family is intensely private. "The best way I can describe it, they're like a mountain man," he said. "They want to be alone."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Your hatred can't help anyone.
Interestingly one of his closest friends says he stopped drinking and smoking pot about two years ago.
Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman's Grudge Against GiffordsIn October 2008, Tierney was living in Phoenix, and Loughner came to visit. They went to see a Mars Volta concert with friends, and Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying "completely." Loughner, according to Tierney, said, "I'm going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I'm going to start working out." Tierney was happy for his friend: "I said, 'Dude, that's awesome.' And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter." Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: "He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it."
After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, "his theories got worse," Tierney says. "After he quit, he was just off the wall." And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago.
Half a fact is as bad as an error.
There was a report earlier today that said Jared Loughner had never been treated in AZ for mental illness. The controlling agency/department confirmed it.
If he had been treated for mental illness, he wouldn’t have passed the background check required to buy the gun.
A good parent does not wait until then. It starts with birth when you give the child a hug and a smile of encouragement at the proper moment. You take the matches away from the toddler. You don't let the preschooler get away with telling lies because it is cute at that age. You keep your word instead of giving in just to "make peace." You do thousands of caring, controlling, contrite, coaxing, considerate, caucus, commanding, cheerful, compassionate, or conscientious things to properly guide a child so that as a teenager, force or even mistrust is the furthest thing from a good parent's mind. This isn't rocket science, it is the same job every parent has had for many millennia. A good parent leaves the Earth a better place. The bad ones are easy to spot.
I can’t believe anyone would waste an ounce of sympathy of these people. What about all the dead, the wounded, their families—????
Every morsel of sympathy I have is for all the people this lunatic attacked. I could care less about his parents. Clearly, they did a HORRIBLE job raising and dealing with their monster.
My brother was that black sheep.
He got into all kinds of trouble starting when he was 14 or 15 or so.
He ended up on the FBI’s wanted list....way way down the list as he was not a bank robber or that sort, but he was a crook.
My mother was a very intelligent woman. She was quick to figure people out, but she could not bring herself to believe my brother was as bad as he was.
What short comings she could see, she blamed on herself. She was educated in the days when they taught that the child was a creature of his environment...whether the mother held him enough, rocked him enough, showed him love enough, etc.
She was not helped any by a brother of hers that lived close by and of whom she was very fond, who told her over and over that it was all her fault, that she was not hard enough on him, etc. But rather than see that he was telling her to get tough, she could see only that everyone thought it was her fault thus enforcing her belief that she did something wrong when he was a baby.
She had ulcers, cried over him for years and only came to realize that it was not her fault when she was in her 60’s.
Only then was she at peace with herself.
So fast forward. Mother is on her death bed, 94 years old and dear brother who is a pathological liar of the worst kind, goes to Mother on her deathbed and convinces her that he suffers from post traumatic syndrome due to his experiences in the NSA shortly after WWII.
Remember, this guy is a pathological liar. His “war” experiences were about equal to Beetle Bailey's. He spent most of his duty screwing German girls.
So Mother died two weeks later believing again at the end that it was all her fault because she had not recognized his problems resulted from the “horrors of war.”
I have not spoken to the ass hole since the funeral, which took place in February 1999.
So unless you have lived in that house, eaten at that table and slept in that bed, be careful not to condemn that which you know not of. Having seen in our family how a black sheep can screw up everyone's mind, I have sympathy for them.
If he is a sociopath, mental health treatment wouldn’t work.
You can’t instill empathy is someone lacking a conscience.
Between 1-3% of individuals worldwide are sociopaths.
I had to give a ride to an 80 year old raging liberal today, I try to avoid her. I was surprised when she was upset about all the blaming by the left. It was because she knew.
She had an aunt who married at 17 and the husband turned out to be Schizophrenic, they had 2 children before they knew this and in the end both children were schizophrenic. All had bad endings.
Normally I would agree but this man has inserted compassion into this story.
The talkative Mr. Smith is serving a useful purpose in humanizing a pair of people who remain mysterious, in circumstances that usually result in being raked over the coals by the news media. I find that very odd. No public appearance or statement whatsoever, not even a written one released to be read to the public.
Every other description of these parents by neighbors, etcetera has described them as distant and unfriendly, with Mr. Loughner being quite the hothead. Now he’s supposed to be some emo Mr. Mom on the word of a man who admittedly didn’t know them well enough to even know their last name. Sounds like more opinion shaping to me, just as we’ve seen all along.
We’re not being informed about the parents in any detail at all for a reason. I’d like to know just what that reason is, and I suspect it’ll shed a great deal of light on more than one peculiar aspect of this whole nightmare of a tale.
Many of us are admittedly making some assumptions based on limited information that we do not know whether or not is even true (about the family situation). I personally have had past experience with mental health matters in my family involving schizophrenia, so I do understand some of these issues. If I knew that someone was a risk to him or herself (much less others), I would at least contact the police (to try to have them pink slipped for a few days) or seek out a probate hearing with a judge if the person (assuming an uncooperative individual) was not willing to go to a hospital or pysch doctor for immediate treatment.
In this case, we do not even know the extent of this man’s mental health. It’s all guesswork for all us posting.
There has to be a change in how we treat mental illness in this country. These parents must have known that Jared was having mental problems. The schools he attended should have been able to initiate the proper help for him. They should be able to do more than suspend a student. Any student exhibiting antisocial behavior should be subject to an intervention with the next of kin brought in to assist in helping the student.
What is the greatest hurdle is this idea that once a person is an adult (over 18) no one can intervene when they show signs of mental instability. It is my belief that a person with a mental problem cannot be expected to make any decision on their own to get mental help. It is like a person with an alcohol problem. They will be the last to consider going to a rehabilitation program.
Until we get a better hold on mental problems, we will continue to see people failing in such ways as they do themselves and others harm. We have let too many people end up in prisons because they cannot help themselves and no one is allowed to intervene to give them help.
Absolutely true. But the left media and the democrat party has been working overtime to pin this on tea party, extremists, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc. all the while ignoring his home and background.
All the way back to high school they knew he was ‘off’. The school system suspends 1st graders who point a french fry at another student (as a mock weapon) but somehow this kid slips through the cracks? Something is not right and more questions need to be asked about what treatment he has recieved in the past, if any. It doesn’t have to be a blame-game. But some facts would be nice.
I’m not discounting the idea that he may be a sociopath. I was simply pointing out that he was never treated for mental illness in AZ.
I believe it was the ACLU in the 1980’s that fought to allow complete freedom to people who had a mental illness that invoked violence. Maybe that court decision should be revisited in the wake of this tragedy, as well as the Fort Hood masacre, etc. Parents knew, Sheriff knew, students and teacher knew...why shouldn’t society be able to act on such knowledge?
This happened to one of our neighbors in our old neighborhood. Heard from one of our other neighbors there that one night, summer before last, the police were summoned and the family had taken their screaming match out in the street. Their beautiful daughter who we saw grow into a mature young lady, who showed so much promise was schizophrenic and not able to function on her own anymore. When we left the neigborhood, she had just moved in with her boyfriend and they were very much in love. So much lost now. No normal family life, no happy gatherings, only despair as the entire family has spiraled out of control. Everyone is devastated and there is nothing anyone can say or do to make it better even a little bit.
As for Jared’s parents, I am reminded of the Columbine killer’s parents. They just ignored the signs and then it was too late. But what can you really do about a 22 yr old that probably did play them like fiddles.
I am just sorry he didn’t put one of those bullets in his own head. Now, while waiting probably years for his trial to begin, we have to relive his crimes and bury his victims and cry for those mutilated by his hatred while his lawyers argue that the hardness of his bed is inhumane and he needs a vegan diet without so much fat or salt in it. Hopefully they will put him in the express lane for execution like they did Tim Mcvey.
I agree with your prayer. There is already too much hate in the world. I wish and pray for the Lord to draw all people to himself.
None of that would do diddly squat to prevent schizophrenia.
I agree. We hear nothing at all and suddenly this article. Some hard nose, fact finding, reporting is needed.
There was a disturbed teen in my family. He had drawings and plans to hurt someone close to him. After many tries the family got him into the local psych unit. They kept him for ONE WEEK after starting him on heavy meds and then tried to guilt the family into bringing him home.Due to concerns for our own safety, we could not do that and he landed on the streets. We begged, called our local Dept of Mental Health, lawyers and everything and got no where. He is still on the streets and, thank God has not hurt anyone or himself.
After this nightmare, I swore I would never ask where the family was again! The system beats you down and does nothing for the patient. It’s liberal overcorrection for the abuses of the past.
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