Open Thread: Bizarre Bits of News on the Arizona Shootings
Posted: January 14, 2011 Filed under: Crime, Surreality, U.S. Politics | Tags: Arizona shootings, Jerad Lee Loughner, Pima County Sheriff 57 CommentsAccording to ABC News, the night before his shocking rampage, Jared Loughner tried to develop photos of himself wearing only a g-string and holding his Glock. The photos were turned over to police by a Tucson Walgreens.
The Pima County Sherriff’s Office confirmed to ABC News they had received the photographs from the store and turned them over to the FBI.
The photos, presumably shot in a mirror, show Loughner, 22, posing with the same make of gun he allegedly used in the Jan. 8 shooting. In the photos he holds the pistol against his crotch and buttocks while wearing a bright red thong, sources told ABC News.
The visual I got from that is of Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver talking to himself in the mirror while drawing his guns. What a surreal nightmare this story is!
Have you heard right wingers claiming that if someone had been present at the scene of the shooting who had a gun it could have saved lives? Well, it turns out there was someone like that present, and he almost shot the man who had just disarmed Loughner!
“I carry a gun so I was — I felt like I was a little bit more prepared to do some good and than maybe somebody else would have been,” Joe Zamudio told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Monday.
“As I came out of the door of the Walgreens, sir, I saw several individuals wrestling with him and I came running. I was already at a full sprint and you know, there’s no time to think about anything,” he explained.
“I saw another individual holding the firearm. I kind of assumed he was the shooter. So I grabbed his wrist and you know told him to drop it and forced him to drop the gun on the ground. When he did that, everybody says, no, no, it’s this guy.”
[….]
…when I came through the door, I had my hand on the butt of my pistol and I clicked the safety off. I was ready to kill him….”I would have shot the man holding the gun,” he added.
Unbelievable.
Is it possible that Loughner had been threatening other legislators than Giffords? According to KGO TV in San Francisco, investigators in the Arizona case have contacted a California State Senator, Leland Yee about threats he received after criticizing Sarah Palin in 2010.
Detectives investigating the shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona last weekend are considering a connection to California Sen. Leland Yee, who received death threats for criticizing former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin last year.
It’s not clear what connection Arizona authorities suspect.
Yee’s spokesman Adam Keigwin….said Yee’s office received threats relevant to Giffords’ investigation in April 2010, when the senator helped reveal that officials at California State University, Stanislaus shredded documents related to Palin’s contract fees as a keynote speaker.
During the incident, students dug through a trash bin outside a campus administration building and found a shredded contract with a speaker who required first-class air travel from Anchorage, Alaska.
Yee chided the university in news reports, and in response, several voice, text and graphic threats were sent to his office.
Here’s a Huffpo article from April that give details on the threats.
You’ve probably heard that one of the survivors of the shooting, Eric Fuller, blames right wingers like Beck, Angle, and Palin for Loughner’s rampage. You can watch an interview with him at Democracy Now.
Tonight there’s news that Fuller tried to visit Loughner’s parents at home.
Suffering from a bullet-wound to the knee, Fuller got out of his car and limped to the door. He said he decided to stop by on the way to a doctor’s appointment.
“So I thought I’d come over here and try to forgive them,” he said. “I know that sounds crazy.”
He sounds really traumatized. It’s kind of scary to think of what these survivors face in a place like Arizona where there may not be a lot of public health support to help them deal with what they are going through. They really need to be in touch with each other in some kind of therapy group situation, IMHO. On the other hand, the police might not like that, because they could end up getting their stories mixed up.
Police have released a timeline of Loughner’s activities leading up to the shootings.
NPR has an article on “The Other, Better Arizona” by Jeff Biggers
I’d love to read some good news, but I haven’t been able to find any. If you have any, feel free to post links in this thread.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
bb, do you feel confident dabbling in criminal profiling at all? If so, I would love to run a scenario by you re a murder in our town.
No, I’m not qualified to do that, but if you want to share the story, that’s OK with me. Do you have a link?
I’m looking for an informal hypothesis from someone trained in the area of psychology.
By providing links, I identify my location and possibly my ID. That’s okay, I guess, as I’m super low risk on the hacker/stalker attraction scale. (Don’t bank, buy or befriend on the net.)
Still, I’d prefer to provide links off-forum and have certain info (re me) filtered.
It’s an Aug/10 case which has rattled me immensely. I worked 20 yrs in criminal law and have seen alot of ugly. But, as they say, when it hits close to home…
Well, as I said, I’m not really qualified to profile anyone. I’m not a clinical psychologist. Sorry I can’t help.
Well, I just thought that given your expressed interest in crime stories, your psychology background and your seemingly correct off-the-cuff diagnosis of the Arizona shooter, you may want to bounce an idea or two around on what type of person who commit such an uncommon (to this area) crime.
I live in a town of less than 30,000 and believe this perp is local. So, it’s super scarey, for everyone here…especially since local and provincial and federal law enforcement have conferred with the FBI.
Btw, I didn’t ask this willy-nilly. It took weeks for me to summon the courage to ask you. But, thanks anyway.
I wanted to share an incident that happened in New Orleans post Katrina with a schizophrenic man. He was on St Charles Avenue and was walking backwards with a knife in front of him making circle motions. The press were there and took pictures. The police made some story up like he lunged at one of them. The end result was that the guy got shot by the circle of police surrounding him.
I think it was because they didn’t know what to do with him. There was no place to really take him because all the psych beds and doctors were pretty much gone. They basically suicided him because there was no structure to deal with .
Here’s a few links to that story and it’s from the local Nation of Islam. I’m looking for the film if I can find it. I know some of you will find that a spurious link, but I saw the confrontation on the news and the situation was troubling. From my standpoint, we’re forcing the law enforcement system to deal with people that need to be dealt with before they get to that point …
http://www.noineworleans.org/news/back_issues/nopd_killing.html
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2362.shtml
I’m trying to find the NEWS links.
Here’s some youtube.
From local fox8 news:
Group: Shooting Will Be ‘Black Mark’ on N.O. Police
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179892,00.html#ixzz1B46FDjjf
The reason I put this up is that I think a community can suffer from “shell shock” and people around the shooting at the mall have needs now. Why aren’t they setting up places for people to come to get mental health services. I haven’t even heard of any grief counseling for the children attending the same school as the young victim.
I’ve experienced post-Katrina stress. I’ve watched people fall into drug and alcohol problem. I have seen the appalling lack of mental health services down here. At some points, the EMTs that picked up people with mental issues had to just drive around with them because there was no place to put them. I can’t help but wonder if Tucson is going to have some issues.
That is so sad, Dakinikat. It is possible for groups of people to be traumatized. I feel traumatized by the Ariz. shootings in Boston. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I lived in Arizona.
I’m not sure a lot of people recognize that a community can actually experience PTSD and that mentally ill people are particularly vulnerable. Just reading about what you said the one shooting victim felt the need to do reminded me of the need every one here felt after Katrina to go someplace and talk about it. Now, we have a pub culture here, most folks wound up seeking therapy at their local bar. The problem is that means access to alcohol for folks with issues … I have friends that have moved from heavy drinkers to full throttle alcoholics now and there’s no place to go for treatment. Mix that with guns and a horrid economy and you get us, the number one gun violence state in the world. I worry for folks in Tucson and especially the survivors.
There is never enough assistance when something traumatic happens. It seems that a little smoke and mirrors therapy is all they offer. In other words, they bring in the therapist for show. There is nothing substantial as far as treatment is concerned. Same thing happened after September 11th. The “counseling” my husband got was a joke. Nothing more then a conference call with a therapist…a nationwide conference call. So there were people in California talking about how traumatized they were, seeing the attack after the fact on TV. There my husband sat, listening to this with his staff, 3 people from his office dead. Just not enough is done.
Your husband understands the term walking wounded. I’ve been in two ‘worst in history ever’ situations and you just never completely get over it. My dad talks to me about his having to get on bombers to strafe Germany like it was yesterday sometimes. Some things you just carry around all the time. I can’t imagine what those folks that do like 3 tours in the ME come home with in their brains.
Dak @9:35 Yes exactly, the shell shock/PTSD is something you carry with you for life. I can’t imagine what those who do multiple tours overseas go through on a daily basis. We got that series The Pacific for my son for xmas, and one of the dvds has interviews with family members of the soldiers that were portrayed in the film. One of them says that his father had Alzheimer’s and when he reached the point where he did not recognize his family, he still remembered the Japanese and the battles he fought in Iwo Jima, and would go back to those days when he was fighting for his life. To me that says a lot. That these experiences are so ingrained in our minds. You never fully recover.
When this murder I’d like to discuss with bb occurred, my husband and my best friend of 20 yrs swore he heard a gun shot, and reported so to police. He, in fact, heard a shot the night before (if at all), not the night of. The reason he was so sure there was gunshot, and confused the date on hearing of the murder? 35 yrs ago he was a witness in the hall of a high school when a shooter let loose.
He never, ever was offered counselling. Of any kind.
Excellent article…not surprisingly found at a real socialist site
Obama in Tucson: Providing an amnesty for the right wing
http://tinyurl.com/46syf9y
The bizarre tone was epitomized by Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Eric Holder, who took the podium in succession and confined their remarks to reading passages from the Bible.
These are the two top officials in the US government for domestic security and law enforcement, and they had nothing to say about the murder of a federal judge and the attempted murder of a congresswoman.
and here’s a fact not available from main stream media
Arizona has the second highest poverty rate among the 50 states, 21.2 percent, and Tucson has the highest poverty rate of any city in the state. The median household income in Tucson is 28 percent below the national average, while the per capita income is 26 percent below the national average
no wonder social tensions are high
dang tags! Sorry….I ment only the head line to be in bold
better??
What Obama has is the paradigm that some ‘violence’ is good, other violence is ‘bad’
Thank you!!!
Wow. Great info.
BB how are you feeling…hope you got some meds and are drinking a lot.
How can right wingers continually call Obama a socialist when the REAL socialist think he’s anything BUT a socialist?
They’re ill-informed or dishonest or lazy-in-the-head? There’s no other answers, are there?
Well, Christina’s parents paid it forward:
9-year-old shooting victim’s organs help save child
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/13/20110113arizona-shootings-christina-green-organs.html
This is good to hear, at least another child can have a chance to live because of the donation.
I can’t believe how the right wingers are attacking the poor sheriff.
I know. Did you see the TPM article about how Clear Channel took down bill boards for Rush Limbaugh with gun shot images on them? That poor guy has to have the toughest job since Wyatt Earp!
I am curious to know how many years or months it was up.
Their statement said ‘several weeks’
It is clear, that her parents were great role models for their little girl. Even in their pain, they were willing to help another child to live, as that is a a tribute selfless of love. Wonderful story and hopefully it raises awareness of organ donation.
Good, Good, Good!
Hey, evening everyone. I read about this g-string thing, that is just weird…I don’t know, it seems like every day something new is being discovered about Loughner. But the image of those pictures are way to freaky to think about.
BB will have to let us know if there’s such thing as a gun fetish.
I’m sure there is. A gun is like a penis extension, right?
Ugh, that is just sick to think…did he associate these killings with some sort of gratification…in a sexual way.
Too much information for me, more than I want to know or forbid see.
This is not a “feel good” article, but it is interesting. Especially if you are like me, and continue to put 2 spaces after a period.
Two spaces after a period: Why you should never, ever do it. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine
Yes, they changed the APA rules and I still like putting two spaces.
I admit to being a two spacer when I remember.
Me too (two!), and if that’s wrong, I don’t wanna be right. Typographers may have decided one space is sufficient, but to my eyes it looks like the sentences all run together. So much so that when I cut and paste from an article, I usually take time to add the missing spaces.
*****A
How was your birthday? Fun filled I hope?
Thanks, Minx. I scanned the article. I’m willing to change, since it seems that it makes no difference in the understanding of the text. However, the emphasis on “it’s wrong” is not a good selling point to those of us who march to our own drummer. And a selling point I didn’t see mentioned is that it may save on paper for those writings which are printed. Most of us can get behind saving a tree. Would it save electricity in the virtual world? It would save time typing, if I ever get used to it.
From the socialist article:
Unbelievable. Terrible things happened because a mentally ill person went around untreated and was able to buy a gun. But to Obama, it’s all a big mystery, and we never could have prevented it.
This man should return to private life immediately. He’s no leader.
It also implies there is ‘evil’ and ‘good’ violence. This one was evil. Afghanistan is good violence.
I have asked the question, why weren’t we (society) impacted with Fort Hood, like we are with Tucson case?
White terrorist apologia. This country can stay in denial that we don’t incubate monsters as long as we can frame them in ways that say they are not like ‘us’. That would be inner city drug dealer from Mexico or Muslim fanatic or crazy. Our suburban legend says they can’t be white,they can’t be Christian and they can’t come from homes like ours with godfearing parents. It let’s people sleep at night and it makes them melt down when the delusion is threatened. As long as there is something they can call not us they don’t care so much. They can sleep if they think those kinds of folks aren’t their neighbors.
BB,
What is your opinion on this? I agree with them, as for years, I used to discuss in private with others that worked with mental health consumers, that yes, ‘some thing’ had turned the key, and turned something on (yup, we thought it was within the DNA, but didn’t suspect a virus) that activated the disease/mental condition.
I recall these chit chats in private about reading the packets of clients and we would be heart broken because many of these clients were in their senior year in college, and brilliant. Now here they were discussing ADLs and how to maintain a baseline so that they could live in the community in the disciplinary team meeting with strangers that were going to see if they could re-enter society.
Years, later when I was taking a math class, wouldn’t you know it, my math tutor had just started on his journey, was trying hard to hold it together, after leaving a top university and coming back to a local college. We clicked ( I understood him and he so needed a kind ear) he visited my work to ask about his dad, but he was really trying to gain insight about his future if he didn’t get better. I suspected he was having issues and we had a frank discussion, told him about some options and he seemed relieved to be able to tell someone about his troubles, even though he was under care, but was still aware enough to want to know about the long journey.
I won’t go into what happened, suffice to say, it was heart breaking, beautiful young man (wasn’t interesting in women, because he was busy studying and working hard to hold it together) working as you would expect, working hard to support himself, brilliant in sciences and he had fallen into the journey of mental illness.
I will tell you many of us suspect that one of the trigger, that allows or TURNS the key, that TURNS ON mental illness, was the use of drugs. I know, the standard idea of that they are self medicating etc, but I am going off having read countless histories and there were no issues prior to the dabbling in drugs, none. Many (I guess enough that we were chit chatting about it) that we saw were brilliant and onto their life’s work/their dreams, they had done a little dabbling in drugs, sometimes at the behest of someone else (choose your friends wisely). So, knowing we would be seen as a bit off ourselves, we only kept this among our little group, but every so often someone else would mention it. The interesting thing is that we never thought about a virus, but we do know that drug use does lower your immune systems ability to fight off illness.
(Bold emphasis mine)
There I found a study that is reflective of what we thought albeit not to the exact point of turning on a key to the disease which we thought was already within the DNA, which the above study is asserting in their new findings.
I believed that was the case so deeply, that when a younger sibling started dabbling and I began to see some things I saw in clients I worked with, I had a frank chat with him about those private chit chats we (those that worked with mental health consumers) were having in private. He stopped the dabbling then and there…scared straight.
When the testing was done for a particular drug, that later was made into a movie they didn’t include the facilities that helped the testing, monitoring, worked out the wrinkles (yup, it all didn’t go well, the procedures weren’t quite in place, but were fixed once they were spotted), worked extra hours for no extra pay, worked with the manufacture with no incentives and took the risk (yup, those releases would only cover your but less than 1%, if at all). So, any hoo, I guess I am complaining, but the fact remains or rather the point is that we cared so much, we went the extra mile, because it is heart breaking to see all these young people join the system, where the recovery rate in next to nil without treatment.
So, much to do and so little time, but hopefully more scientists/psychiatrists will keep working to find a cure and more mental health professionals will keep working to help those that need mental health services. If society would view it a ‘disease’ more people would seek treatment and we would have more productive citizens in our communities and families wouldn’t go through such heart ache at seeing their loved ones suffering with mental illness.
Wow, great post. I am thinking of Andrea Yates who killed her five children. Childbirth and the madness that her story tells us in regards to postpartum troubles. I wonder how much research has been done on this important aspect of mental illness, and given the ages of the women. Andrea was another case where it was hard not to cry.
And just yesterday I read where a pregnant woman went to a bar with her friends, and she was drinking alcohol was told
to leave because she was 8 months pregnant and they couldn’t be held liable if she was to go into labor….wtf?
Then in Seattle, a woman gave birth, the infant lived for one hour, and when she received the bill, there was a $50 death tax that she had to pay to King County. I guess the county thought that would make her feel better after the death of her child.
Correction in my story about the 8 month pregnant woman, she was NOT drinking alcohol.
OT: I mentioned this a few days ago, that Obama was working to ease embargo to Cuba.
Barack Obama acts to ease US embargo on Cuba | World news | The Guardian
I’m seeing that as a good thing right now.
Me too. When the American Ballet Theater went to Cuba to celebrate Alicia Alonzo’s birthday, I thought it was just the beginning. I hope some relief comes from this. When my dad was in the Navy, he said over in Guantanamo Bay (during 1968-1978) he says the Navy would hire Cubans to work at the base. Then Castro would take these peoples US paychecks and cash them himself and give the Cubans back a peso for every dollar. At the time my dad said that came out to about 13 cents per dollar.
Well, my county is one of these that are having school on Monday. What is strange is that every year my kids have been in the school system here (since 2003) there has been school on MLK day. It is always used as a make-up day for the snow days…but on Confederate Day, the Courthouse is closed…go figure. For Some Students in the South, a King Day Lacking That ‘Holiday’ Feature – NYTimes.com
It took me awhile to get used to the idea that people in Mississippi and upstate Louisiana consider Memorial day a ‘yankee’ holiday
Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, also rented a motel room and took pictures of himself with his gun. I’ve been surprised, but thankful, that Loughner didn’t stage his shoot-out at Pima Community College where an instructor gave him a “B” that he was unhappy about.
All of this staging with gun and underwear for pictures must have some young male significance that I find weird.
This victim from the Arizona Shooting really needs to get some help to deal with the PTSD, it is sad to see this:
Arizona Shooting Victim – Town Hall Death Threat – Video | Mediaite
Definitely. And even if the others seem more balanced I bet they all need help.
I still think that memorial service didn’t help and was the opposite of what they needed. Calm, ordered, sober support, I would think, is a lot more useful after a traumatic event than hootin and hollerin.