Police detailLoughner`sactions

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TUCSON TRAGEDY
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
S AT U R D AY , J A N U A R Y 1 5 , 2 0 1 1
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Police detail Loughner’s actions
LOUGHNER
Continued from A1
The Pima County Sheriff's Department reports that these were Loughner's movements in the hours before last Saturday's rampage.
La Cañada Dr.
La Cholla Blvd.
Thornydale Rd.
Linda Vista Blvd.
10
77
7
12
Cortaro Farms Rd.
10
Oracle
9
Magee Rd.
11
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6
8
5
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2
3
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Jan. 7
1. 11:35 p.m.- Loughner drops off a roll of 35mm film to be
developed at Walgreens.
Jan. 8
2. 12:24 a.m.- Loughner makes a purchase at a Circle K.
3. 12:29 a.m.- Loughner checks into a Motel 6.
4. 2:19 a.m.- Loughner returns to Walgreens to get10his
developed photos; makes a purchase.
5. 2:34 a.m.- Loughner makes a purchase at a Chevron.
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By Friday night, Jan. 7,
Loughner had already grown
into an increasingly isolated and
troubled man. For years he’d
been vexed by squabbles with his
father, difficulties holding jobs
and, in late September, suspension from a community college.
He had become convinced the
government was trying to brainwash society with grammar, his
posts on websites show. He lived
increasingly in a fractured, alternate world of what he called
“conscience dreaming.”
At 4:12 a.m. Saturday, he went
public on his MySpace page with
dark intentions: “Goodbye,
friends. Dear friends, please
don’t be mad at me.”
It’s unknown when Loughner
began roaming Friday night. The
timeline shows he went to a Walgreens on Ina Road at 11:35 p.m.
to drop off a roll of 35mm film.
An hour later, he was in a Circle
K 10 blocks away, buying unknown items. Loughner then
checked into the nearby Motel 6,
apparently to wait for his photos.
Around 2 a.m., he called his
friend Bryce Tierney but didn’t
say anything about his intentions, Tierney is heard saying on
911 tapes after the tragedy.
Loughner then returned to Walgreens to pick up the photos.
At nearly half past 2,
Loughner bought more items at
a Chevron on Hartman Lane. He
flipped through the photos and
found one he liked.
Where Loughner was when
he posted on MySpace almost
two hours later is unclear. He selected two photos: a self-portrait
and a carefully composed picture of a semiautomatic pistol
resting on a U.S. history textbook
and an image of the White
House. The gun appears to be a
9mm Glock, the same type of
handgun later used to kill six
people and wound 13, including
Giffords, at a Safeway store
north of Tucson.
Two hours later, he sought
ammunition. He headed to a
Walmart at Foothills Mall.
Initial reports after the attack
suggested he had tried unsuccessfully to buy ammunition at
one Walmart before trying again
at another. Walmart officials
confirmed
that
Loughner
bought ammo but not where.
They said they don’t put ammunition on sale until after 7 a.m.
Loughner picked up more unknown items at a Circle K and returned to the Walmart. Investigators said he attempted to buy
ammunition at 7:04 a.m. but became nervous and left.
Loughner headed to another
Walmart on Cortaro Road in Ma-
Tracking Jared Loughner
Ina Rd.
13
14
(Location unknown) 4:12 a.m.- Loughner posts a
bulletin on MySpace titled “Goodbye friends”
containing a photo from Walgreens.
6. 6:12 a.m.- Loughner makes a purchase at a
Walmart at Foothills mall.
7. 6:21 a.m.- Loughner makes a purchase at a
Circle K.
8. 7:04 a.m.- Loughner attempts to buy ammunition at a Walmart at Foothills mall.
According to
authorities,
Jared Loughner,
the suspect in
last Saturday’s
mass shooting,
parked his
Chevrolet Nova
in front of his
family’s home
before disappearing into the
desert on the
morning of the
attack.
DAVID BECKER/GETTY IMAGES
rana; within half an hour, he had
bought ammunition and a black
diaper bag with shoulder straps.
Investigators would later report finding such a bag near
Loughner’s home and said it
contained several boxes of 9mm
ammunition and other Walmart
merchandise.
Shortly after he left the Marana store, authorities said, an
Arizona Game and Fish Department officer pulled Loughner
over for running a red light in his
1969 Chevrolet Nova. Authorities said that Loughner was polite and that they had no reason
to search his car.
About half an hour later,
Loughner pulled a black bag out
of the Nova, which he’d parked
at the family home, his father,
Randy Loughner, would later tell
investigators. When Randy confronted Jared, the son muttered
and disappeared into the desert.
At 9:41 a.m., a cab picked Jared
Loughner up at Circle K a mile
away. They arrived at Safeway
on Ina and Oracle roads at 9:54
a.m., six minutes before Giffords
was to start her “Congress on
Your Corner,” an event she had
announced on her website the
day before.
The pair went inside, and
Loughner got change for a $20
bill to pay the $14 fare.
The cabdriver left, and minutes later, Loughner strode up to
the line of people waiting to
meet Giffords. He was wearing a
black hoodie sweatshirt and hat.
He asked calmly if Giffords was
present. Then, he walked away.
At 10:10 a.m., a burst of popping rang out. Giffords was shot
through the head, and others fell
around her.
Five minutes later, Loughner
had been tackled by witnesses,
and sheriff’s deputies had bundled him into a squad car.
Loughner ranted about his
constitutional rights. He was
loud and agitated.
As deputies booked him into
custody, they captured a wildeyed and smirking image of a
man whose behavior had grown
more unstable in recent months.
Loughner told them he had a
right to an attorney.
9. 7:27 a.m.- Loughner buys
ammunition and a diaper bag
(backpack style) at a Super
Walmart.
10. 7:30 a.m.- An Arizona Game
& Fish Department officer stops
Loughner for running a red light
at Cortaro Road and I-10.
11. Between 7:31 a.m. and 9:40
a.m.- Loughner returns home,
removes a black bag from his
vehicle. His father confronts him
and Loughner flees on foot,
carrying the black bag.
12. 9:41 a.m.- A cab driver picks
up Loughner from a Circle K at
West Cortaro Farms Road and
drives him to Safeway.
13. 9:54 a.m.- The cab driver and
Loughner enter Safeway to get
change for the fare.
14. 10:10 a.m.- Loughner opens
fire. Nineteen people are shot:
six killed, 13 wounded.
Source: Pima County Sheriff’s Department
JACY SMITH/THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Other developments
» Pima Community College
released a videotape made
by Jared Loughner last year
that triggered his suspension from the college. In the
video, Loughner makes rambling statements as he films
while walking on campus,
including: “We’re examining
the torture of students …
How’s it going? Thanks for
the B. I’m pissed off … I lost
my freedom of speech tonight, guy … I’m in a terrible
place. It’s the school that I
go to … This is my genocide
school, where I’m going to
be homeless because of this
school … This is genocide in
America. Thank you. This is
Jared from Pima college.”
» Sheriff’s officials said that
when Loughner was arrested, officers found an array of items in his pockets,
including two 15-round
magazines, a 4-inch Buck
knife, a plastic bag containing currency, a Visa card
and his Arizona driver’s license.
» The New York Times reported that in the hours before the shooting, Loughner
had photos developed at a
drugstore that show him
wearing a red G-string and
posing with a 9mm Glock
handgun like the one used in
the shootings.
Posts offer glimpse into life of suspect
Online chats included subjects of prison, grammar, rape
By Craig Harris
and Robert Anglen
The Arizona Republic
Eight months before Jared
Loughner was accused of a
shooting rampage last Saturday
north of Tucson, the 22-year-old
posted a question in an online
chat: “If you went to prison right
now ... what would you be thinking?”
The question was included in
48 postings Loughner participated in between April 18 and
June 10 under the name “Dare”
on chat sites for the online game
Earth Empires, a website administrator told The Arizona Republic on Friday.
Those postings combined
with other rambling anti-government rants on YouTube and
MySpace give a glimpse into the
life of an accused mass murderer
who, like many teens and young
adults, made his life an open
book on online social-networking sites.
Loughner quit posting on the
Earth Empires site last summer,
around the same time he appeared to have ended more than
100 posts on the conspiracy website abovetopsecret.com, administrators of the site said. On that
site, he refers to a dream where
he becomes a wolf.
Loughner is accused of killing
six and injuring 13, including U.S.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in the
shooting outside a supermarket.
None of the postings reviewed by
The Republic refers to Giffords.
In the postings on Earth Em-
pires, Loughner writes about a
range of subjects, including talking to a counselor about his outbursts in class, complaining to
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about his
employer, and other issues about
grammar, aggression, rape,
weight-lifting and whether
someone would hit a disabled
child. He also asks if prison is a
close resemblance of high
school, and he complains about
getting a B in a Pilates class.
In the posts, the writer confirms to others he is Jared, and
he writes about rejection and
difficulty getting and keeping a
job. He writes that he was fired
from five places, including a Red
Robin restaurant.
The Arizona Republic could
not independently confirm that
the poster was Loughner, but a
correlation of facts indicates it
was him. For example, an owner
of a Red Robin outlet in Tucson
confirmed Loughner worked for
him. Police reports show
Loughner had been arrested on
suspicion of vandalism involving
graffiti. The poster on Earth Empires wrote “2 misdemeanors
hurt. Don’t do Graffiti.”
In the post regarding prison
May 9, others banter with
Loughner for a while, and then
he asks: “Let’s say you are in the
cell for life ... for nothing.”
The postings, including some
that were extremely graphic,
were released Friday afternoon
by David McVittie, a Canadian
college student who administers
the site. McVittie confirmed to
The Republic that the postings
were made by Loughner. They
can be seen at earthempires
.com.
The Earth Empires site posted
a statement disassociating itself
with Loughner. It said: “The majority of us had little to no interaction with Mr. Loughner during
his time here, but he did play various incarnations of the game off
and on since high school, according to several of his former clanmates.”
Earth Empires is a free online
role-playing game where players
command armies and economies. Players use pseudonyms to
communicate with one another,
and they can use their country’s
military to attack and defend
against enemies, according to
the website. The site also says
players can “make new friendships by joining a clan.” The online chats are used to discuss
strategy, and they are similar to
other social-networking sites
popular with teens and adults
who post daily musings.
A day after the killing, members of Earth Empires began
talking about Loughner, who
also went by the handles “heroin,” “cry” and “XTC” on chat
sites, according to those who
knew him from the chat rooms.
McVittie only released postings
made by the handle “Dare.”
In an e-mail exchange with
The Republic, McVittie said,
“We do not have any postings
from Jared as any of those other
pseudonyms — they occurred on
forums and sites which are now
defunct and the EE (Earth Empires) staff never had access to
them in the first place.
“The only reason we have
these ones is because his clanmates alerted us. Had they not
alerted us to their existence, we
would not have known about
them. These posts are being released because one of his former
clanmates leaked a selection of
posts to the media and we feel
that we want to provide the
whole picture rather than a small
subsection that could be taken
out of context.”
The statement on Earth Empires said Loughner had not
been an active member since
June, but he had “well over 100
posts on nearly 50 distinct topics, nearly 30 of which he himself
started.” The site also released
comments made by other members, whose identities were redacted, and some questioned
Dare’s state of mind.
The posts occur during all
hours of the day.
On April 24, a post asks
whether a disabled child or adult
should be hit. In another post
that day, a thread he begins
“Why Rape!!!!” asks: “Would you
put a child’s pair of Teenage mutant ninja turtles underwear on
your girlfriend?”
On May 9, a post at 2:32 a.m.
asks if anyone has had aggression
“24/7,” and then that night he
asks the question about prison.
Loughner appears to have
posted more than a hundred similar messages on Abovetopsecret.com.
“We here at AboveTopSecret
.com … find ourselves in the unfortunate position of apparently
being one of the largest (if not
the largest) repositories of online postings by someone who
has been classified as a ‘monster,’ ” a message posted on the
site says.
Abovetopsecret.com
operators said their research resulted
“in an overwhelming amount of
anecdotal evidence” that a poster called “erad3” was Loughner.
The messages have similar
themes to other Loughner posts:
government brainwashing, concerns about currency and declining use of proper grammar.
He also made several postings
about NASA, saying several
spaceflights are hoaxes.
Giffords, whom authorities
have said was clearly the target
of the rampage, is married to a
NASA astronaut, but it could not
be determined if Loughner knew
that.
Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the AntiDefamation League, which
tracks extremist groups, analyzed hundreds of Loughner’s
postings and concluded that
Loughner is likely not tied to any
specific group or ideology.
Rather, he said, they appear to be
the product of mental illness.
“The style and nature of the
writings — which are often disjointed, rambling and semi-coherent — appear consistent with
someone suffering from some
form of mental illness, such as
schizophrenia,” Pitcavage said.
Reach the reporters at
[email protected]
or 602-444-8478 and
robert.anglen@arizona
republic.com or 602-444-8649.