Wow.
The mug shot of Jared Lee Loughner has been released. It would appear that, prior to the assassination attempt, he shaved his head. Prior photos showed him with a head of full curly hair, and then a nicely trimmed head of hair. Is he a skinhead? Maybe, given the association of that white supremacist group, but we don’t know that for sure yet. To me, the more important aspect of this photo is the eyes and smile. Crazy, evil, or both?
He looks like that bailiff from the 80s TV show Night Court.
That photo is very disturbing.
Also, the guy is 22 years old. Doesn’t he look much older in that photo?
They’re saying he’s not cooperating with police – that he’s not talking. I’m actually surprised by this. I’d have thought he’d be spouting his beliefs non-stop. (Not sure why I thought this, but I did!)
Looks more like one of those boards we had as kids, where you drug the magnetic filings over to the face to add hair, beard etc.. My sister was great at it BTW!!!!
It’s the shaved eyebrows that make him look especially bizarre. Until I saw that smile, I actually felt sorry for him.
Look at that smile. He’s murdered several people and severly injured several others. He’s in a shitload of trouble and yet his bizarre smile looks somewhat triumphant. He lives in lala land. A total psychotic.
Keep digging. Refusing to cooperate is a pretty good indicator of sanity.
No digging Anon. It’s what I know from professional experience. It’s characteristic of parnoids to not cooperate with perceived authority because they are incapable of trusting authority. But I do feel sorry that the narrative you are trying to spin is not working out for you: namely, that this is a crime that springs mostly from right wing hate speech. It really is difficult to admit that your agenda made your wrong, isn’t it?
Dana,
Where is your evidence? Do you have statements from Jared Loughner? Do you have evidence that Jared listened to Limbaugh or Beck? You’re also immediately assuming that Giffords was attacked as a Democrat? What if she was attacked simply as a person of power? What if she was attacked as a woman? Furthermore, Loughner asked Giffords a question in a previous ‘meet n’ greet’ about…..wait for it…the meaning of words, not any bill or issue: http://www.suntimes.com/news/3224841-418/loughner-tucson-class-gunman-myspace.html And Jared was really pissed off about the answer he got to his question, “what is a government if words have no meaning?”. So he could’ve been mad about that. Additionally, as Nate Silver notes, he also was a big gamer. So why isn’t everyone blaming Call of Duty? I personally don’t know why he did it; all that exists are theories. You should admit that, as well, not simply asserting “that this is a crime that springs mostly from right wing hate speech,” without any support outside of gold standard references on a facebook page written a possible 5 years ago.
I highly doubt Loughner shot Giffords for any political issue. The guy was a registered Independent who didn’t even vote in the 2010 election: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/house/jared-lee-loughner-was-a-regis.html
So you think this guy was a Tea Partier? It doesn’t appear that the guy cared much about the partisan politics. So he may have been angry about that grammar question, not because Giffords voted for health care. I wish you all would a)be patient and wait for the story of Loughner’s motivations to come out 2) stop politicizing every event. Yes, as it was a politician who attacked, this event is political; but don’t immediately try to use this event to gain an upper hand on the Republican party. You all are just going to keep digging the rabbit hole deeper and deeper. I’m tired of you Republicans and Democrats politicizing every aspect of human life. I want to watch one all-start baseball game without having to see one Obama or Bush interview during the game.
Dana, I don’t know if you looked at my previous comments, but if you actually take a long look at the history of political assassinations, very few of them make sense in a mainstream, partisan political context. Only John Wilkes Booth assassinating Abe Lincoln was due to a broad political issue. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/the-cloudy-logic-of-political-shootings/69147/
Why is my comment above “awaiting moderation”?
I’ve never seen this before…
Comments with multiple links sometimes get caught in the spam filter.
A high school friend of his said that Jarod suffered a sever case of alcohol poisoning when he was 16 and afterwards his personality changed so dramatically that he seemed a totally different person.
Can just one bout of binge drinking cause permanent brain damage? The answer from the latest study say yes, alcohol is an astringent that shrinks tissues and kills cells by draining them of moisture needed to function, in the brain, this is playing with fire, since cells there contain senders and receptors that control judgement. Most cells recover, but not all, and a lot depends on how much and how often you drink, The brain damage that alcohol causes often leads to violent behavior. We have become much to permissive as a society when it comes to alcohol, Too many T>V. programs openly promote drinking, Charlie Sheen,s charcter on “Two and a Half Men’, is always shown with a drink in his hand, just for one example. Add to that I have had friends tell me internet use has made them drink way more than they did previously, Do any of you out there notice an increase in your alcohol consumption since you started blogging?
He looks like the evil spawn of Uncle Fester.
This can be a lesson for all of us.
This goes to show you that even the most respected families in our communities are affected by the dearth of psychiatric help available when their loved ones gaze into the abyss.
I bet his parents would gladly switch places with Jeffrey Dahmers’ right now.
Politico has a story about his parents today – not much there but says the killer’s father hasn’t worked since he was born which leads to further speculation. Joe Scarborough actually just said that it sounds like the killer has mild autism like his son.
A few reviews of his points of view have said, especially his beliefs about the currency, come straight out of the skinhead handbook.
The comment above about alcohol poisoning is interesting. I know a few people with early twenties onset of mental illness and none developed severely psychotic tendencies. This guy absolutely should have been flagged against a legal gun purchase much less a semi-automatic. Where is the NRA on this – crickets.
Nancy, has it been shown that the assassin is autistic? That is the first I am hearing of it.
Not at all. I am listening to Morning Joe and he made a comment comparing his child’s behavior (who is diagnosed with Aspergers) to descriptions of this killer’s behavior. I thought it was a weird comment for Scarborough to make.
Dupnik vs Limbaugh
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/arizona-sheriff-blasts-rush-limbaugh-spewing-irresponsible-vitriol/story?id=12583285
Del Libertarian, how in the world have you concluded that I think the explanation for these crimes largely stem from political motives? Above and elswhere on DL I have argued that the eitiology for this tragedy has to with paranoia and psychosis. That is what the evidence suggests so far.
Above and elswhere on DL I have argued that the eitiology for this tragedy has to with paranoia and psychosis.
Even if true that does not rule out a political trigger for it. All that free-floating paranoia was not focused on McDonalds or Bank of America or the judges of American Idol or the surviving Beatles or the dog barking in his neighbor’s yard – it was focused on a Democratic Congresswoman. Why do you think that is? Do you seriously expect us to believe it was random?
Teapublican rhetoric is aimed at exactly these kinds of personalities. It attracts them, pulls them in, and then focuses them on targets. It implants thoughts of violent deeds where none might have existed before. It provides target lists. It provides justifications.
Exactly anon. It’s an odd argument that Loughner was hermetically sealed away from the environment in Tucson. Giffords was not picked randomly from a phone book. She was targeted specifically. The sheriff, Giffords’s father, brother-in-law and husband all talked about the vitriol and threats she faced.
🙂
Sheriff Dupnik (hero of the left) was quik to point blame…
“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’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.”
from a Tuscon blog.
Link?
Could we have a link? Just this once?
Jinx, Geezer!
http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-is-a-product-of-sheriff-dupniks-office/
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/09/132780313/sheriff-accused-shooter-unhinged-made-threats
“As we understand it, there have been law enforcement contacts with the individual where he made threats to kill,” Dupnik said during a press conference Saturday evening. But he wouldn’t say who those threats were aimed at.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A majority of Americans reject the view that heated political rhetoric was a factor in the weekend shootings in Arizona which killed six and critically wounded a congresswoman, a CBS News said on Tuesday.
more bad news for moonbats
In the words of Chris Rock, “Whatever happened to just crazy?”
“Political trigger?” I’ll tell you what the likely political trigger was. The paranoid belief that the American government was exercising “mind control” on the populace and other such delusional nonsense as well as the irrational fear of all authorities qua authorities–the kind of fear that characterizes paranoid psychotics. Therefore, this crime was just as likely to have occurred if the congresswoman had been a Republican. As far as I can tell, that what the evidence presented so far seems to suggest.
Dana; I agree, she happened to be a short cab ride away, it was her access that caused this more than her politics. That appears to be the reality here.
These are posts that are probably him at this website. At one point someone actually replies that he is probably schizophrenic and to get help before he hurts himself or others. He just went up a notch on my crazy scale.
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread649091/pg1
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/12/132845483/a-missed-chance-to-intervene-in-tucson
“this crime was just as likely to have occurred if the congresswoman had been a Republican.”
Yes, exactly. Sheriff Dupnik didn’t condemn conservatives; he condemned the heat of the whole argument, not half of it. The poisoned atmosphere has the potential to harm people on both sides.
Members of Congress understand this even if their conservative constituents do not.
It’s their conservative constituents they’re afraid of.