GUILTY AZ - Six killed, 13 injured in shooting at Gabrielle Giffords event, 8 Jan 2011 - #2

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By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times January 13, 2011, 10:28 a.m.
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, wounded in the Arizona shooting rampage, has 'used her hand to communicate' and is yawning and rubbing her eyes. A neurosurgeon says sometimes doctors 'are wise to acknowledge miracles.'U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has not only opened her eyes, but she also is communicating with her family, physicians said at a Thursday morning news conference.

"Her family has asked her very specific things, and she has used her hand to communicate with them," said Dr. Michael Lemole, a neurosurgeon at Tucson's University Medical Center and one of the surgeons who operated on Giffords after she was shot in the head Saturday morning. That implies that she has a good amount of cognitive functioning.

Lemole said he was there when Giffords first opened her eyes Wednesday evening in the presence of family members and some of her colleagues from Congress. "It was probably a combination of the unexpected but familiar that prompted her to open her eyes and caused her to look around. That implies that the part of the brain that let lets us awake from sleeping, the arousal center," is functioning.

"That's a very important step on her move forward."

He said she opened her eyes again later in the evening in response to a television playing during the president's speech at the university.

"That consistency is important," he said. "We want to see things repeated over and over again."

<snip>
He said they hoped to get her into a chair Thursday or Friday. more at link:http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ona-shooting-medical-20110114,0,1910870.story
 
By Dana Hedgpeth and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 13, 2011; 2:27 PMTUCSON - Doctors treating Rep. Gabrielle Giffords said Thursday she has reached "a major milestone" medically with her ability to open her eyes and seemingly respond to her surroundings as she recovers from a gunshot wound to the head.
<snip>
He said he heard that Giffords opened her eyes later Wednesday night "with nothing more than the TV on" in her room. He said it might have been tuned to the memorial event at which Obama delivering a stirring eulogy but that he was not sure.
"We have seen the eyes begin to track," Lemole said later. "We're just starting to see those signs" that reflect "a level of alertness." He said Giffords also has "used her hand to communicate" with her family members. "I think there is that communication going on."
Rhee said Giffords has made further progress Thursday. "She has vision," he said. "Her eye stays open for longer periods of time. . . . You can tell she can see." Lemole added that when the bandage on her right eye was removed, Giffords was able to open both eyes.Rhee said the congresswoman was keeping her eyes open Thursday morning for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. more at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...00952_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2011011302996
 
"Arizona, however, has one of the most flexible statutes for involuntary commitment and allows anyone with knowledge of the person's behavior — a teacher, a parent, a police officer, a friend — to petition for a court-ordered mental health evaluation, the first step toward involuntary treatment, said Kristina Ragosta, legislative and policy counsel at the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va.

"Arizona law also doesn't require the person to be homicidal or suicidal, but simply to be found 'persistently and acutely disabled' by mental illness."

This is from the msnbc article near the top of this thread. Is this saying what I think it's saying - that in Arizona, Jared could have been forced into treatment even if he hadn't made a specific threat of violence? Now that still doesn't address the legal costs and mental health care costs that would have been involved, but still. This makes it sound like he could have been forced into help even as a legal adult.
 
BuzzieCat said:
"Arizona, however, has one of the most flexible statutes for involuntary commitment and allows anyone with knowledge of the person's behavior &#8212; a teacher, a parent, a police officer, a friend &#8212; to petition for a court-ordered mental health evaluation, the first step toward involuntary treatment, said Kristina Ragosta, legislative and policy counsel at the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va.

"Arizona law also doesn't require the person to be homicidal or suicidal, but simply to be found 'persistently and acutely disabled' by mental illness."

This is from the msnbc article near the top of this thread. Is this saying what I think it's saying - that in Arizona, Jared could have been forced into treatment even if he hadn't made a specific threat of violence? Now that still doesn't address the legal costs and mental health care costs that would have been involved, but still. This makes it sound like he could have been forced into help even as a legal adult.
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And if he HAD - wouldn't that have prevented him from legally purchasing a gun?

Folks, if your child is kicked out of school and ordered to undergo a mental exam, has numerous arrests and is a known drug abuser, not to mention builds a skull altar in your backyard, then chances are you might want to consider seeking treatment by a mental health professional.
 
You can petition anything you want. Would a court grant it? Probably not...not unless he was deemed gravely disabled, which takes a whole heck of a lot. It would go far beyond some nonsensical comments, and people being scared of you. They would have to prove he was a clear and present danger to himself and others; that he had no way to take care of himself; and that he was so far out of touch with reality that he was unable to, say, remove himself from the path of an oncoming vehicle.

Gravely disabled is a generally accepted score of less than 50 on the Global Assessment Functioning scale, which is the most commonly used assessment scale of someone with MI to take care of themselves.

Since he was still living at home, and not actually acting out in a violent manner (that we know of), it probably would have gone no-where.

Courts are reluctant to take away someone's freedom unless they have an iron clad reason to...and I honestly don't think that any petition would've been successful.

'Course, I don't know AZ stuff; it might be different. But that's the way it works in CA, and the GAF score is generally universal, so it's probably similar.

Best-
Herding Cats
 
I am local and was at the event that morning, I went to high school and was good friends with Gabby so this all hits very close to home for me.

I plan to post more when time permits but here is a rundown of what I have gathered so far as to what happened the morning of the shooting.


JL was driving around in his chevy nova on the same side of town as the shooting, around 8 am and was pulled over for running a red light, he was let off with a warning after his name and plates were run and came back clear.

He then returned home. At some point in the weeks leading up to the shooting he bought a Glock 9 amm and extended 33 round magazine. His father took the gun away from him (maybe because JL was making threats? We dont know) and put the gun in a black bag and locked it in the trunk of the family car.

That morning when JL returned home after being pulled over he got in to the trunk of the family car and grabbed the black bag, the father saw him and came outside after him, JL ran in to the desert area surrounding his home and his father got in to his truck and chased after him. The father soon gave up when JL disappeared in to the desert.

JL then goes to a quicky mart store after taking gun out of black bag and likely putting in to the waist line of his pants to conceal it, ditched the black bag in dumpster perhaps (it hasnt been found yet) and then called a cab on payphone. Cab came to pick him up and took him to Safeway where he then went in to Safeway with cab driver to get change to pay cab fare, he then started shooting.

Questions we dont have answers for yet:

JL had not worked in several years, couldnt hold a job, so where did he get the 600 dollars to buy Glock and Magazine and Ammo. Also appears he had large bill in pocket when he paid cab fare and needed to get change from inside safeway (why did he want change when he knew what was about to go down, strange) SO where did he get all this money? We do not know yet...


Will post more as time permits, feel free to ask any questions you have, I am a Tucson resident and know the city well and can answer any questions you may have.
 
PAXIMUS,
Thank you so much for your insight. I too have questioned how this man has gotten money. I read he had jobs off and on,but don't know how recent. I wondered if he could be selling drugs,but frankly his thoughts are so disorganized,I don't think he could even do that. Since he seemed to be taking drugs,where did he get money for that?
I'm sorry that you had to go through all this,but thank you for sharing with us.
 
The just did the processional and placed Christina's body in the back of the hearse. This is heart breaking.
 
My friend's daughter was placed on a 5150 hold (danger to herself and others) here in California. She had been staying at a hotel and got in a argument with someone and made quite a scene. LE was called out and the police officer realized after talking to her for just a few minutes that she was suffering from MI. He authorized her to be placed on a 3 day hold in the county mental health facility. The involuntary hold was extended 3 times. She exhibited none of the outrageous behavior exhibited by JL.
 
hockeymom said:
PAXIMUS,
Thank you so much for your insight. I too have questioned how this man has gotten money. I read he had jobs off and on,but don't know how recent. I wondered if he could be selling drugs,but frankly his thoughts are so disorganized,I don't think he could even do that. Since he seemed to be taking drugs,where did he get money for that?
I'm sorry that you had to go through all this,but thank you for sharing with us.
Click to expand...

Where did he get the money? Credit card.
 
hockeymom said:
PAXIMUS,
Thank you so much for your insight. I too have questioned how this man has gotten money. I read he had jobs off and on,but don't know how recent. I wondered if he could be selling drugs,but frankly his thoughts are so disorganized,I don't think he could even do that. Since he seemed to be taking drugs,where did he get money for that?
I'm sorry that you had to go through all this,but thank you for sharing with us.
Click to expand...

Apparently he had quit taking drugs, here is a report from his closest friend:


Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. "More chaos, maybe," he says. "I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what's happening. He wants all of that." Tierney thinks that Loughner's mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: "He ****s things up to **** **** up, there's no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: 'Another Saturday, going to go get groceries'&#8212;to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in."




http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/jared-lee-loughner-friend-voicemail-phone-message




Tierney, who's also 22, recalls Loughner complaining about a Giffords event he attended during that period. He's unsure whether it was the same one mentioned in the charges&#8212;Loughner "might have gone to some other rallies," he says&#8212;but Tierney notes it was a significant moment for Loughner: "He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, 'What is government if words have no meaning?'"

Giffords' answer, whatever it was, didn't satisfy Loughner. "He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question,' and I told him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,'" Tierney recalls. "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."

Tierney says he has "no clue" why Loughner might have "shot all those other people." But, he notes, "when I heard Gabrielle Giffords has been shot, I was like 'Oh my God...' For some reason I felt like I knew...I felt like if anyone was going to shoot her, it would be Jared."

Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords, according to Tierney: "It wasn't a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don't remember him stalking her or anything." Tierney notes that Loughner did not display any specific political or ideological bent: "It wasn't like he was in a certain party or went to rallies...It's not like he'd go on political rants." But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is "****ing us over." He never heard Loughner vent about the perils of "currency," as Loughner did on one YouTube video he created.

Tierney, who first met Loughner in middle school, recalls that Loughner started to act strange around his junior or senior year of high school. Before that, Loughner was just a "normal kid," says Tierney. When the two friends started hanging out in sophomore year of high school, "there was nothing really dark about Jared," Tierney says.








He also describes Loughner as being obsessed with "lucid dreaming"&#8212;that is, the idea that conscious dreams are an alternative reality that a person can inhabit and control&#8212;and says Loughner became "more interested in this world than our reality." Tierney adds, "I saw his dream journal once. That's the golden piece of evidence. You want to know what goes on in Jared Loughner's mind, there's a dream journal that will tell you everything."

...In 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. By early 2010, dreaming had become Loughner's "waking life, his reality," Tierney says. "He sort of drifted off, didn't really care about hanging out with friends. He'd be sleeping a lot." Loughner's alternate reality was attractive, Tierney says. "He figured out he could fly." Loughner, according to Tierney, told his friends, "I'm so into it because I can create things and fly. I'm everything I'm not in this world."
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Nancy2441 said:
My friend's daughter was placed on a 5150 hold (danger to herself and others) here in California. She had been staying at a hotel and got in a argument with someone and made quite a scene. LE was called out and the police officer realized after talking to her for just a few minutes that she was suffering from MI. He authorized her to be placed on a 3 day hold in the county mental health facility. The involuntary hold was extended 3 times. She exhibited none of the outrageous behavior exhibited by JL.
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Local reports now indicate that JL had been making death threats to various people, Pima College professors, radio hosts, county officials, for over a year now and nothing was done about it. He made these threats via the telephone.

Some local folks of note are blaming the Sherrif, Mr. Dupnik, for possibly covering this up as a a favor to JL's mother who also worked for the county, although there is no real evidence to suggest this is the case, however.


Here is one blog written by a fairly respected member of our community, Mr. James Kelley:


Jared Loughner is a product of Sheriff Dupnik&#8217;s office
with 447 comments

This is the report that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been dreading since the tragic event on Saturday January 8.

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn&#8217;t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff&#8217;s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner&#8217;s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared&#8217;s obvious mental instability.

Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more.

This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff&#8217;s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.
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http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/
 
Dr. Know? said:
There's also a male friend of Jared's who said his parents wouldn't let them inside either because they were always fighting with him and he always sat in the car for 10 minutes while they fought with him. Or it was misreported...What's with this being so reclusive?

hmmm, What the heck went on in that house? I'm not blaming the family. I am just very curious as I feel all the mentally ill deserve that respect from us, to try to understand why they have became what they have.

I have no problem with him getting the dp or whatever he deserves. But this cat is out there on thought. He scares me. I want to know why.
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Some local talk is suggesting his father was also mentally unstable and unable to hold a job, I do not know if this is true or not. Neighbor kids have said to local news that if they lost a ball in the Loughner backyard they would rather buy a new one than go and try and get the old one back because of the bad vibe that the family put off to neighbors. Again, I cant say whether this is true or noit, it is only what I have seen reported on local news.
 
Well, we have seen or read most of these local news stories you are bringing here.

And, the chollajumps stuff is all just opinion and obviously anti sherilff.

Paximus, you say you were at the event that day. Why don't you talk about that?
 
PAXIMUS said:
JL then goes to a quicky mart store after taking gun out of black bag and likely putting in to the waist line of his pants to conceal it, ditched the black bag in dumpster perhaps (it hasnt been found yet) and then called a cab on payphone. Cab came to pick him up and took him to Safeway where he then went in to Safeway with cab driver to get change to pay cab fare, he then started shooting.
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Respectfully snipped for space.

http://mystateline.com/fulltext-news?nxd_id=220346

They actually have found a bag they think might be it. It contained ammunition and this article says they are testing for fingerprints. It will be very interesting to see what comes of that.
 
BuzzieCat said:
Respectfully snipped for space.

http://mystateline.com/fulltext-news?nxd_id=220346

They actually have found a bag they think might be it. It contained ammunition and this article says they are testing for fingerprints. It will be very interesting to see what comes of that.
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Yes they just found it this evening from what I am hearing on the news now, it appears he ditched it in a desert wash/riverbed while on the run from dad and left excess ammo in it.
 
i.b.nora said:
Well, we have seen or read most of these local news stories you are bringing here.

And, the chollajumps stuff is all just opinion and obviously anti sherilff.

Paximus, you say you were at the event that day. Why don't you talk about that?
Click to expand...

I actually did not see anything of note while at the event, I and a few friends, all who went to HS with Gabby were standing way back in the parking lot waiting for the crowd to thin so we could make our way up to her later and say hello. We really werent paying much attention and just having small talk when out of nowhere we heard the gun shots and within minutes the crowd was dispersed/corraled by LE and we made our way back to our cars and got out of there, meeting later at a McDonalds to discuss what had just happened. It was mass chaos I can tell you that much.

I would like to say that in spite of what many say in the media, Tucson, Arizona is not a right wing racist gun toting town, Phoenix is very much so, at least parts of it, but Tucson is a very liberal arts centered community and it is not made up of the type of people one thinks of when they think of Arizona these days. Its a very good and safe community and I personally do not know any redneck racist types the likes of which the media will make you believe Arizona is infested with. It just isnt so!

JL is unfortunately a very sick young man and I cant help but feel some compassion for him and certainly for his family and the family of the victims, this was a senseless act of violence and the entire community is hurting because of it and we have all come together as best we can to make things right for those who are suffering. I think JL simply got through the cracks and any number of people who might of picked up the phone to try and get him some help may have prevented this but hindsight is always 20 20. In any case I do not feel any hatred towards the young man, he has a medical issue that is likely not any fault of his own, aside from smoking some pot, which many others do regularly with no ill effect, he probably didnt have any hand in making himself as mentally ill as he had become in his adult life, I hope he can someday get the help he needs and come to grips with what he has done and show the mercy and compassion towards his victims and their families that they very much deserve.

As an attorney I could not argue that JL is legally insane, meaning that he didnt know or understand the wrongfullness of his actions, clearly he did, he planned ahead as he said himself, but one can be guilty and insane, they are not mutually exclusive in a court of law and I suspect in the end that will be verdict, guilty but insane and he will wind up in a medical facility where he belongs, getting the help he needs, as opposed to rotting away in prison and never having the chance to become a better person and learn from the very grave and senseless act of violence that he committed.

I know that if Gabby has a say in it that is exactly what she would want, she is not a big fan of the death penalty and would clearly want this young man to get the help he needs in a medical facility, locked away from society where he can no longer do harm.
 
Here is the 'official' information from a PDF posted by the Pima County Sheriff's Department:

Pima County Sheriff's Department

Shooting – Update
January 13, 2011
On January 13, 2011, at approximately 10:00 a.m., the Pima County Sheriff’s Department responded to a report of a black bag found in the 4000 block of W Soledad Place by an individual walking his dog. The bag was determined to be a diaper bag resembling a backpack and contained 9mm ammunition. The found bag is believed to be the black bag that Randy Loughner described his son carrying the morning of the shooting. The bag has been transferred to the custody of the FBI where further analysis will be conducted.
Deputy Jason S. Ogan
Public Information Officer
Jason.ogan at sheriff.pima.gov

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