Jared Lee Loughner Identified As Gabrielle Giffords Shooter (INFO, VIDEOS)

[democracy1st]

Jared Lee Loughner has been identified as the man suspected of shooting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).

Loughner was described by eyewitnesses at the Arizona shooting as a young white man who looked like a "fringe character," in his mid-to-late 20s, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing.

Loughner was quickly arrested after he allegedly shot Giffords and some 12 others at a public event at a Safeway grocery store in Tucscon. He reportedly shot the congresswoman "point blank" in the head and may have come from inside the store. He attempted to flee after running out of ammunition and was tackled by one of Giffords' staffers.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/08/jared-lee-loughner-gabrielle-giffords-shooter_n_806243.html

[Aristus]

1. "He attempted to flee after running out of ammunition and was tackled by one of Giffords' staffers."

Fucking asshole. Coward with a gun. When out of ammo, he runs away. :mad::grr:

[TygrBright]

2. "Fringe characters" are male, clean-shaven, white, short-haired, young?

Y'know, much as I appreciate the New Media, I do wish they'd import a coupla "Old Media" customs.

Like editing.

wearily,
Bright

[Peace Patriot]

3. The shooter or shooters also shot dead at the scene a federal judge and a 9 year old child.

And I'm thinking that the judge may have been the main target. He had ruled in favor of some immigrants, got attacked by rightwing hate radio, got hundreds of death threats and was under U.S. Marhalls' protection for a while. Racism seems to me a more plausible motive for this kind of carnage than people getting medical care help or than a single "liberal" vote in a Diebold/Puke congress. Racism is more visceral, more uncontrollable and more likely to produce bloodshed and mayhem than the more intellectual motive of a government health care bill.

Giffords survived, the judge did not. A report that she was shot pointblank in the head might be inaccurate. The observer might not have noticed an even more pointblank shot at the judge. It's not likely that she would have survived an accurate pointblank shot at the head. It must have been off center and she just sheer lucked out. The shot or shots at the judge were more accurate. They killed him on the spot. As for the child, the Giffords' aide who was killed or others who are dead, I don't know what to say except that the shooter or shooters were out to make a really BIG SPLASH.

There are reports that a second man may be in custody and that police were searching for a third man. That's why I say "shooter or shooters." I don't think it's clear yet that the man reported to be in custody--Jared Loughner--was the only one that police believe to be involved.

There is another thing that I am concerned about--that this big, splashy, appalling, headline-grabbing horror in Arizona--may have been intended as a distraction to get the murder of John P. Wheeler out of the headlines and get scrutiny off that investigation. Something went wrong with that hit--leaving Wheeler alive and wandering around in a daze--then his killer or killers found him again, finished him off and dumped his body into a dumpster or dump truck. He ended up as landfill. This very highly placed, very well-connected Air Force consultant, working for one of the biggest, most important, most well-connected Defense Dept. contractors--Mitre Corporation (Board Chair James Schlesinger)--into the highest technology for airspace control and protection, and use in war--was seen on parking lot surveillance footage, disheveled and disoriented, hours before he was killed and his body dumped. The best guess at this point is that it was a hit gone wrong--and if it was a big, important insider assassination, with some motive related to "state secrets," and went wrong, there would be all the more reason (and power) to get the spotlight off this investigation, while the details and cleanup are taken care of (--details like the police tearing up the floorboards of his kitchen looking for something--just reported; details like his inexplicable movements over several days' time and his possibly misdirecting friends and family as to where he was going and what he was doing).

I'm feeling David Kelly deja vu all over again, on this one. And then Arizona explodes--with what may be racist and/or political mayhem that, in truth, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Giffords was no threat to rightwingers (although her house was trashed evidently over the her health care vote). The judge maybe was a little more of a threat, but not really that much (except that somebody certainly saw him as a threat--what with the hundreds of death threats). But such a threat, in either case, to prompt this general carnage, including shooting a nine year old??? I don't know. I just don't know. I can think of a lot of motives for the horror in Arizona that make more sense than just some rightwingers going off the deep end--motives involving handlers of the shooter or shooters, such as creating an atmosphere of mayhem and terror, to get more and bigger "security" contracts out of the government, or to pave the way for more repression, or--as I said--as cover for something else.