Posted on 01/09/2011 6:32:21 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The man arrested for opening fire at a community meeting held by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Saturday -- killing six people and injuring 13 others -- disrupted classes at Pima Community College, tried to manipulate his dreams and posted rambling messages on the Internet.
The suspected shooter is Jared Lee Loughner, a 22-year-old who lives on the northwest side. He is mentally unstable and may have had an accomplice, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Saturday evening.
A former classmate of Loughner at Pima, from which he was suspended Sept. 29 for code-of-conduct violations, said he was "obviously very disturbed."
"He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," said Lynda Sorenson, who took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College's Northwest campus.
Dupnik said the suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers. The threats weren't against Giffords, Dupnik said.
[snip]
As a middle school student, Loughner was "kind of an outcast," said Shannin Macey, who said via e-mail she attended Tortolita and Mountain View with him. In high school, Loughner was in jazz band and played the saxophone, but he dropped out in junior year, said Tommy Marriotti, who was a high-school friend of Loughner.
At the time he dropped out, Loughner was having drug problems, Marriotti said, but he seemed to do well once he started taking classes at Pima.
Loughner attended Pima courses from summer 2005 until he withdrew in October after his suspension, the college said.
He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008 but was rejected, said First Sgt. Brian Homme, who oversees Army recruiting in Tucson. Loughner was sent to Phoenix to take a test and physical, but "he was found to be unqualified," Homme said.
[snip]
Sorenson, Loughner's classmate at Pima, said he was asked to leave the pre-algebra class several times and eventually was barred from class.
Pima officials said in a news release that from February to September 2010, Loughner had five contacts with PCC police for classroom and library disruptions at Northwest and West campuses.
My thoughts exactly. Pre-algebra? In college? And he’s complaining about literacy? Wow.
In our state if you are going to be granted a pistol permit by the sheriff’s office, you have to supply 2 signed statements from witnesses attesting to your character.
Sheriff’s office is also obligated to conduct a background check.
Wonder how this kid got the gun.
Good point, and one that warrants further investigation..
Well, no. Stimulants cause psychotic breaks as you describe. However, someone who uses pot may also use crack or meth. I hope they did a tox screen right away.
I agree. It can be very difficult to protect mentally ill adults from themselves and to protect others from their actions.
Sheriff Dupnik should be investigated. What did he know about Jared Loughner? And when did he know it?
How on earth did the media (FOX included) so quickly determine that he was an "Afghanistan veteran" and it was okay to report that without confirmation? They took a rumor and ran with it.
Every darned one of them has an anti-Conservative agenda. Instead of saying "I am Spartacus!" each could very well say "I am Dan Rather!"
The Unabomber is a genius compared to anybody. His IQ is around 160. And even though he professed a disdain for leftism, he has quite a few leftists eating out of his hand.
Yes, I'm positive. I've done a lot of research on Ted Kaczynski. The guy is not a nut. He developed his worldview in order to excuse himself for his failures as a man. It was either that or suicide.
Well, yeah. The guy was left-winger influenced by left wing books like the Communist Manifesto & Mein Kampf.
Loughner is clearly and classically schizophrenic. Typical age of onset in males, and typical development. Probably he'd be classified as undifferentiated type since he has symptoms of both paranoid and disorganized type.
Usually schizophrenics aren't violent, but they also usually have some family that cares enough to them some help. That appears not to be the case here.
At any rate, the state media is too busy blaming people they don't like, like Palin, Rush and Beck, for the results of a simple genetic disorder. Honest and intelligent reporting (of which there is none anymore in our nation at the national level) would realize and explore the issue of schizophrenia, which has an incredible incidence of 1% worldwide.
The Unabomber is a genius by the classic, standard definition. He started attending Harvard at age 16, and went on to get a PhD in math from Michigan.
So we ought to hang the Unabomber around Harvard's neck as often as possible, in order to counteract the notion that if you have an Ivy League pedigree, you are innately superior and your views sacrosanct.
I once read the Unabomber's Manifesto in its entirety.
It sounded like Al Gore with a side order of EarthLiberationFront: he wanted to destabilize society in order that there be mass unrest and die-offs, to the point that the few humans left would be able to live with environmentally-friendly, sustainable 'technology'.
The ONLY thing the Unabomber said about conservatives in his book were the three words "conservatives are fools".
Most of his vitriol was against the left for not going nearly far enough with his Utopian wet dreams.
Cheers!
She is the first jewish female FROM ARIZONA elected to congress is how it should read. Poor reporting.
I work with it every day of my working days and I KNOW it to be factual.
The Board of Supervisors angle will be interesting.
So who was his psychiatrist and what drugs was he on?
The problem with people with mental illness is that their care providers are criminally incompetent/negligent.
They drug their patients to obtain an apparency of "normalcy", and then they set the patient free to enjoy their "rights" among the rest of the populace who have walking time bombs in their midst and don't know it.
Eerily similar.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.