Frigid temperatures this weekend prompt cold weather advisories

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

For Jared Loughner, the morning of the
deadly shooting rampage was a blur of activity.


      He hustled to Walmart twice. He ran a red light, with the
officer letting him off with a warning. Back home, he grabbed a
black bag from the trunk of a family car and fled into the desert
on foot, his suspicious father giving chase.


      Later, Loughner took a cab to a Safeway supermarket and began
squeezing off round after round into the crowd.


      The new details of the Walmart visits and the traffic stop
emerged Wednesday, adding to the picture of the last frenetic hours
the 22-year-old spent before the attack Saturday that gravely
wounded his apparent target, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and killed
six others.


      "It sounds like he was pretty busy that morning," Pima County
sheriff's Capt. Chris Nanos said.


      As Giffords' condition improved in an intensive care unit
Wednesday, all federal judges in the state recused themselves from
the case to avoid any future questions about their impartiality,
given that one of their colleagues, John Roll, was killed in the
rampage.


      President Barack Obama flew to Arizona and met privately with
Giffords and other victims still being treated at the University
Medical Center. The president was to speak at a nighttime memorial
service.


      The new details about the way Loughner spent the morning showed
a harried young man dashing from store to store across this
southern Arizona city in the hours before the shooting that shocked
the country.


      Nanos said Loughner made two trips to Walmart and made some
purchases. He declined to specify whether Loughner purchased
ammunition.


      At some point, an officer with the Arizona Game and Fish
Department saw Loughner run a red light on a road that runs
parallel to Interstate 10 around 7:30 a.m. and pulled over his
1960s dark gray Chevy Nova, authorities said.


      The stop was about 6 miles from the Safeway store, agency
spokesman Tom Cadden said.


      Wildlife officers don't usually make traffic stops unless public
safety is at risk, such as running a red light. The officer took
his driver's license and vehicle registration information but found
no outstanding warrants and let him go.


      "All he saw were some fast food wrappers, no black bag,"
Cadden said. "The officer said he was polite and subdued."


      Loughner had a valid license and insurance and the car was
registered, agency spokesman Jim Paxon said. "He was warned and
released because we had no probable cause to hold, or do an
extensive search."


      Sometime later, Loughner was back at his house on a block of
low-slung homes with palm trees and cactus gardens.


      Loughner removed a black bag from trunk of the family car. His
father, Randy, saw him, and asked him what he was doing, said Rick
Kastigar, chief of the department's investigations bureau.


      Jared then ran off into the nearby desert, only to emerge later
from a cab at the Safeway supermarket where Giffords was holding an
event to listen to constituents' concerns, authorities said.


      Hours after the attack, sheriff's deputies swarmed his home and
removed what they describe as evidence he was targeting Giffords,
including handwritten notes in a safe that read "I planned
ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords."


      Among the notes was one with the words "Die, bitch," which
authorities believe was a reference to Giffords.


      Nanos said the writings were either in an envelope or on a form
letter Giffords' office sent him in 2007 after he signed in at one
of her "Congress on Your Corner" events - the same kind of
gathering where the shooting occurred.


      Investigators, however, are still searching for the black bag.


      "What he did and the morning before the shooting, we're just
trying to find all that out. Naturally, we want to find every
detail we can," Nanos said, adding that Loughner may have made
other stops that morning but could not specify what they were.


      Later Wednesday, documents were released revealing details of
the Loughner family's encounters with the Pima County Sheriff's
Department and Jared's run-ins with police at Pima Community
College in Tucson.


      The college records detail Loughner's increasingly bizarre
behavior last year, culminating with his suspension in September.
The 51 pages of campus police reports, obtained under an open
records request, described a series of classroom outbursts and
confrontations that prompted worried instructors to summon campus
officers.


      Loughner's behavior grew from disruptive to deranged over time,
but never violent, according to the reports. In one, dated Sept.
23, an officer called to quiet an outburst described Loughner as
incomprehensible, his eyes jittery, his head awkwardly tilted.


      "He very slowly began telling me in a low and mumbled voice
that under the Constitution, which had been written on the wall for
all to see, he had the right to his 'freedom of thought' and
whatever he thought in his head he could also put on paper. ... His
teacher 'must be required to accept it' as a passing grade," the
officer wrote. "It was clear he was unable to fully understand his
actions."


      In a poetry class, he made comments about abortion, wars and
killing people, then asked: "Why don't we just strap bombs to
babies?"


      Sheriff's reports detailed nine contacts officers had with
Loughner or one of his parents, from May 1994 to March 2010. The
first with Jared Loughner came in September 2004, when he reported
that a fellow student pricked him with a needle.


      In May 2006, police arrested Loughner on a misdemeanor charge of
being a minor in possession of alcohol. He was taken from his high
school to a hospital because he was drunk on vodka he had taken
from his father's liquor cabinet.


      "He advised he drank the alcohol because he was very upset as
his father yelled at him," the report said. "I could see his eyes
were very red and he was crying."


      Loughner had a strained relationship with his parents, those who
knew the family said.


      In September 2007, Loughner was cited on a misdemeanor charge of
drug possession after officers found two marijuana pipes, remnants
of a joint and rolling papers in a van he was in with another
teenage boy.


      The officer who interviewed him reported that Loughner first
denied having any contraband.


      "I asked if I could search him. He said he had a right to say
no," the officer wrote in a police report. But soon after,
Loughner admitted to having a pipe in his pocket and apparently
cooperated with the officer.


      Jared Loughner has been charged with trying to assassinate the
congresswoman, killing Roll and a 9-year-old girl, as well as
fatally shooting a Giffords staffer. Judge Larry A. Burns in San
Diego has been appointed to the case.


      Giffords, who was shot in the head, is breathing on her own and
responding non-verbally to doctors.


      "We have really decreased the amount of sedation we are giving
her and, as a result of that, she's becoming more and more
spontaneous all the time," said Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma chief at
the University of Arizona.

Gallery

Obama tells polarized nation: 'We can be better'

Arizona shooting shines a light on mental illness

Officers stopped suspect on day of Ariz. shooting

Palin: Journalists incite hatred after AZ shooting

Neighbor: Parents of shooting suspect devastated

Minn. colleges say they watch for warning signs in students

For Jared Loughner, the morning of the
deadly shooting rampage was a blur of activity.
      He hustled to Walmart twice. He ran a red light, with the
officer letting him off with a warning. Back home, he grabbed a
black bag from the trunk of a family car and fled into the desert
on foot, his suspicious father giving chase.

Officials: Frenetic morning for rampage suspect

Go Deeper.

Like this?