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From the Los Angeles Times

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Suspect's parents express grief and bewilderment

As Tucson prepares for President Obama's arrival, Jared Lee Loughner's parents release their first public statement since the shooting in which their son is charged.

by Seema Mehta, Sam Quinones and Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times

January 12, 2011

Reporting from Tucson and Los Angeles

As Tucson scrambled to prepare for President Obama's scheduled appearance at a memorial service for the victims of the weekend's mass shooting, the parents of the alleged gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, offered their first public statement Tuesday, insisting that the attack left them as perplexed as anyone else.

From the home they shared with their son in a working-class neighborhood, Randy and Amy Loughner released a statement calling it "a very difficult time" and speaking of their deep sorrow.

"There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish that there were, so that we could make you feel better," the Loughners said. "We don't understand why this happened. It may not make any difference but we wish that we could change the heinous events of Saturday. We care very deeply about the victims and their families. We are so very sorry for their loss."

The alleged gunman's motives for shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others remain unclear, though friends said he had grown increasingly paranoid. One told The Times that Loughner was influenced by films alleging that the collection of income tax is illegal and that the terrorist attacks of 2001 were staged by the government.

A law enforcement official said Tuesday that a note was found in Loughner's safe that said: "Die, Bitch."

Later Tuesday, the Pima County Sheriff's Department corrected its tally of the wounded. Nineteen people were shot, the department said, not 20, as had been reported. Six died, and 13 were wounded.

And Giffords' congressional office released photos of the lawmaker and her husband, astronaut Mark E. Kelly, holding hands in her hospital room. The photos were taken Sunday, Giffords' office said.

The images added a poignancy to Arizona's latest turn in the national stage.

Some critics, angered by the state's aggressive anti-immigration stance and right-leaning politics, have pointed to the shootings as evidence that Arizona is a place of intolerance and Tombstone justice.

But there was also a rising sentiment and determination here that Arizona's latest appearance in the spotlight will be a chance for a recalibration of the state's image.

The state has mustered an immediate and unified response, for instance, to reports that Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas was planning to picket the funerals of shooting victims.

Tucson's Democratic and Republican parties joined together to organize a blockade of counter-protesters, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation restricting funeral protests — a bill that sailed through the normally rancorous state Legislature with ease.

"I think it took a tragedy for the rest of the world to see how much compassion and unity there is in Tucson," said Christin Gilmer, 26, who used to work for Giffords. At Gilmer's direction, supporters of the victims will line funeral processions wearing white wings to shield the families from the sight of the church picketers.

"I'm sorry it took a tragedy to show what a tight-knit, strong community we will always be here," she said.

Bill Hileman, at a public appearance Tuesday at the hospital where his wife is recovering from bullet wounds, delivered an impromptu tribute not just to the shooting victims, but to his adopted state.

Hileman said he and his wife, Susan, recently retired and spent two years searching the nation for the perfect community to make their home. They picked Tucson.

Susan Hileman had taken a young neighbor, who had been elected to her elementary school student council, to meet their congresswoman. When the gunman opened fire, Hileman, 58, was hit three times. She survived, but her young friend, 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, was shot in the chest and killed.

Hileman noted that he was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital at one point when a minister wandered in from the street to offer him comfort. "That's my Tucson," he said.

Obama is scheduled to arrive Wednesday for a public memorial. The president's visit will come two days after Loughner appeared in federal court and was charged with five federal crimes, including the attempted assassination of Giffords and the murder of John M. Roll, Arizona's chief federal judge, who was caught in the spray of bullets.

Additional state charges are expected; Loughner could face the death penalty.

Wednesday's memorial service at the University of Arizona's McKale Center is open to the public, although security will be tight. A protester brought an assault rifle to one of the president's previous visits to Arizona, and a pastor here once prayed publicly for Obama's death.

A crowd of as many as 14,000 was expected to join the president and First Lady Michelle Obama, U.S. Sen. John McCain, university President Robert N. Shelton and others.

Many in Arizona are hoping the service will be an opportunity to begin healing, even if some remain incensed with the portrayal of their state.

"After Columbine, did people say [ Colorado] was responsible? Or Virginia after Virginia Tech?" asked Jay Tibshraeny, mayor of the Phoenix suburb of Chandler and a former state legislator. "You've got nuts in every state. And, unfortunately, every state is being touched by these tragedies."

Meanwhile, new fragments emerged about Loughner's life.

He lived with his parents near Interstate 10, north of downtown Tucson. The home, more than any other on Soledad Avenue, is landscaped with plants native to the nearby Sonoran Desert, including cholla, nopal and saguaro cactus.

Loughner's mother, Amy, appears to have been the family's primary breadwinner. According to the human relations director of the Pima County Parks and Recreation Department, Amy Loughner is a manager of a park in northeast Tucson on the site of a hot spring once used as a resort. She earns $25.69 an hour.

Jared Loughner was periodically seen walking his dog, Hannah, around the neighborhood. But neighbors said the family had grown increasingly reclusive. George Gayan, 82, a retired copper mine mechanic who lives next door, said Loughner's father once refurbished old cars, giving them something to talk about.

But in more recent years, he said, "it got so there was less and less interaction." Randy Loughner eventually built a wall around his house, indicating to Gayan that he wanted privacy.

Jared Loughner, meanwhile, had repeatedly exhibited unusual behavior. George Osler, 45, whose son Zachary was friends with Loughner, said he thought Loughner, who was picked on in high school and devastated by a breakup with a girlfriend, had distanced himself from reality and was abusing drugs.

"He was a little odd," Osler said. "You just have a suspicion — keep a close eye on this guy in case he's up to something."

Osler said Loughner had become drawn to movies that delved into fringe political conspiracy theories, such as "America: Freedom to Fascism," which claims that the income tax system is illegitimate, and "Loose Change," which asserts that the federal government had a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"It was like part of him wanted to create an alternate reality," Osler said.

Near the end of 2008, hoping to join the military, Loughner swore off cigarettes, drugs and alcohol, cut his hair and started dressing more conservatively and working out, Osler said. But the military rejected his application; Loughner was "devastated," Osler said.

"He just slowly spiraled into madness," Osler said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-20110112,0,2158219,print.story

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Tucson rallies to protect girl's family from protesters

Arizona lawmakers pass an emergency measure to stop Westboro Baptist Church from demonstrating at the funeral of Christina Green, 9. Outraged residents make plans to shield her family.

by Seema Mehta and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

January 11, 2011

Reporting from Tucson

— Arizona lawmakers moved quickly Tuesday to try to block protesters from the funeral of 9-year-old shooting victim Christina Green, passing an emergency measure prohibiting protests within 300 feet of any funeral services.

In addition to the new law, hundreds of Tucson residents were making contingency plans to try to protect the family of the girl who was slain in Saturday's rampage.

The actions were prompted by the Westboro Baptist Church, a publicity-seeking Kansas congregation known for demonstrating at the funerals of U.S. soldiers, arguing that their deaths are retribution by God for America's acceptance of homosexuality. The church announced it would protest Green's funeral, scheduled for Thursday, because the family is Catholic.

The protest drew instant and unanimous condemnation from Arizonans.

"Protesting or picketing outside the funeral of an innocent victim is despicable," said House Speaker Kirk Adams. "It's time to bring Arizona in line with the many other states that protect the sensitivities of victims against groups that use fear and hate to denigrate the lives of Americans."

Adams sponsored the emergency measure that prohibits people from picketing or protesting within 300 feet of any residence, cemetery, funeral home, church, synagogue or other establishment during or within one hour of a funeral service or burial service.

The House and Senate passed the bill unanimously Tuesday. Gov. Jan Brewer signed the measure Tuesday evening.

The founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, Fred Phelps, has traveled with his daughters and granddaughters throughout the county picketing soldiers' funerals, prompting new state and local laws to keep them away from grieving families. The Supreme Court has agreed to take up a free-speech case related to the funeral protests.

Tucson residents are preparing to line the funeral procession for Green, both to show their support of the family and to block them from seeing the Westboro protest.

"We just want to show the families in Tucson that we're a community that's bound together, through the good and the bad," said Janna Zankich, a 46-year-old dance studio manger.

On Tuesday evening, she planned to gather with dozens of people at Breakout Studios to construct 8- to 10-foot wings that volunteer "angels" would wear along the funeral procession to block the family's view of the protesters.

Residents' grass-roots response to the church's planned protest has spread quickly through social media.

A friend of Zankich's, Christin Gilmer, put up a Facebook page calling for volunteers to help protect the family from picketers from Westboro. Hundreds of volunteers have said they would attend.

Trevor Hill, a University of Arizona junior, is trying to coordinate the myriad groups so they are a calming and peaceful force on Thursday.

"Our goal is to be silent. We don't need to be a distraction — these are funeral processions," he said. "No signs or music, no counter-protests. Do not engage Westboro Baptist. It's just not worth it, and it's equally disrespectful for the family for us to be yelling."

Hill also hopes to show the world a different side of Tucson.

"There have been people claiming Arizona is the center of intolerance, the mecca of bigotry. That is absolutely not true. These are people who live their lives and want to raise families," he said. "It's honestly a very special community."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-funeral-protest-20110112,0,3132073,print.story

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A solemn presidential duty awaits Obama in Tucson

When he speaks at a memorial for the shooting victims in Tucson on Wednesday, President Obama has a chance to promote unity and healing in a mourning nation.

by Christi Parsons and Paul West, Washington Bureau

January 12, 2011

Reporting from Washington

When he addresses a memorial for the Tucson shooting victims, President Obama — like Ronald Reagan after the Challenger explosion, Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombing and George W. Bush after Sept. 11 — will stand before a nation that is taking stock of him in a crisis.

The president must try to comfort the Tucson community and the nation, mourn the dead, call for unity and healing, and yet avoid saying anything Wednesday that would appear to politicize the event or use it to overtly boost his standing.

At its best, a speech such as this should emotionally connect Americans to one another, and to him. At its worst, it could be a lost opportunity to demonstrate the kind of personal leadership Obama's predecessors summoned at moments of national tragedy.

"This is an opportunity for him to more fully express his leadership of the country, hopefully to maybe turn down the heat on the debate and bring the country together," said Douglas B. Sosnik, a Clinton White House political director. "He can say that it's OK for people to disagree, but how they express it is important, because words matter and they have implications. This is a moment for that."

One painful question for many Americans is whether the nature of political discourse somehow brought on this tragedy. Television, radio and Internet conversations about the shooting roil with theories, alternately blaming the left wing and the right wing for provoking the alleged shooter, and sometimes blaming them both.

A CBS News poll suggests that nearly 6 six in 10 people think that heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the tragedy. But the fact that so many people even have an opinion suggests a currency to the question. Obama may eventually need to address it.

"He's not speaking for one party or another when he deplores violence and calls for civility," said Michael Waldman, who was Clinton's chief speech writer during much of his second term. "That's speaking for the country, but he doesn't want to overdo it. This is above all else a private tragedy for the people involved."

White House aides said Obama would steer clear of politics in his comments at the event, which begins about 5 p.m. PST. They said he would focus almost entirely on the people, families and the community directly affected by the shooting.

Peter Wehner, who helped craft Bush's remarks at the post-Sept. 11 national prayer service, warned that there were many "tripwires out there, and this debate is hot." An aggressive conservative media establishment will be eager to push back if Obama is perceived as "trying to rap the knuckles of conservatives or trying to draw some deeper political meaning from this, rather than moral."

Obama "has got a chance to bring the country together and recapture what was attractive during the campaign to a lot of people, which is the post-partisan, transpolitical persona he had," Wehner said.

A challenge for Obama will be "to show real human warmth," Wehner said. "He's actually had a hard time doing that. He needs to be very careful that he doesn't come across as cool and detached."

Obama has led the nation in prayer at least twice before, after the massacre at Ft. Hood, Texas, in 2009, and, more recently, after the deaths of 29 miners last spring in a West Virginia explosion.

At that memorial service, Obama offered words of comfort by speaking of those who perished.

"Most days they would emerge from the dark mine, squinting at the light," he said of the miners. "Most days, they would emerge, sweaty, dirty, dusted with coal. Most days, they would come home. Most days, but not that day."

The words were delivered in Obama's earnest but dispassionate way, a trademark style that bewilders some observers of the intellectual former law professor. Friends say Obama is uncomfortable exposing his emotions in public.

But on Wednesday he must take stock of a different kind of tragedy — an attempted assassination of a member of Congress and the killing of a federal judge and five others — when he takes his place at a local service of prayers, poetry and blessing.

"The president will have to strike the right tone. He will not want to politicize something that is not overtly political," Waldman said. "He is there to comfort families and the community. When he says that there is something special about a member of Congress meeting the citizens and being able to do so without fear of violence, that's not political — that's speaking for the country."

Setting that as a goal and pulling it off are two different things. Clinton has weighed in with his advice. In an interview with the BBC, the former president said the House of Representatives should take the lead in changing the tone and tenor of the country's political discourse.

"No one intends to do anything that encourages this sort of behavior," Clinton said while on a trip to Haiti. But political rhetoric "falls on the unhinged and the hinged alike."

Presidents at moments like this strive to both comfort and steel the country. Bush's speech in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks framed the nation's policy before a joint session of Congress: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," he said.

Reagan, speaking in 1986 from the Oval Office the day of the Challenger tragedy, paraphrased a poem written by a World War II aviator when he told of how the six astronauts and civilian Christa McAuliffe "waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God." He later met with the families of the victims.

Part of the task of comforting the nation also falls to the new House speaker, Ohio Republican John A. Boehner. Unlike Obama, he is known for getting choked up and even weeping in moments of strong emotion.

On Wednesday, Boehner will assume his role in part by calling up a resolution to honor the dead and injured. The resolution recognizes acts of heroism by those present at the attack, suggesting hope and perhaps even future courses of action.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-obama-20110112,1,43548,print.story

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Gabrielle Giffords breathing on her own, moving both arms

Doctors say Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, targeted in the Arizona shooting rampage, is able to 'generate her own breaths,' and her ability to move her right arm — controlled by the side of her brain penetrated by the bullet — is a very good sign.

by Thomas H. Maugh II and Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times

January 11, 2011

Reporting from Tucson

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is breathing on her own and moving both arms, both very encouraging signs of recovery, physicians at University Medical Center in Tucson said Tuesday.

In an interview, Dr. Peter Rhee, the chief of trauma at the medical center, said Giffords was moving both arms, although her left arm was more active than her right, and moving her eyes. Previously, doctors had said that she was moving only her left arm, which is controlled by the right hemisphere of her brain — the side that was not penetrated by the bullet.

The fact that she was able to move her right arm, which is controlled by the injured hemisphere, suggested that the damage was not as bad as surgeons had initially feared.

The swelling around her eyes had decreased, and although she hadn't opened them yet, Rhee said he detected "flickering" that indicated she was trying. Most notably, the swelling in her brain had not increased; swelling tends to peak about three days after such an injury.

"She is able to generate her own breaths," Dr. Michael Lemole, one of the neurosurgeons who operated on her after the shooting Saturday morning, said during a news conference. Nonetheless, Giffords' doctors have left a breathing tube in place in an effort to prevent fluid from entering her lungs, which could cause pneumonia.

The surgical team also has revised its initial assessment of the bullet's trajectory, which the doctors had thought entered from the rear and exited over the left eye. They now say it looks as if she was shot in the top part of her face and the bullet exited out of the back of her head, Rhee said.

Lemole said Giffords was still following simple commands. The team has backed off on her sedation so that she is alert more, he said, but he would not make any predictions about the rate of her recovery. "She's going to take her recovery at her own pace, not ours. I'm very encouraged that she has done so well. She has no right to look this good.… We all have to be extremely patient."

Rhee said she was over the hump in terms of survival. "I think she has a 101% chance of surviving. She will not die," he said. He also does not think she will be in a prolonged coma. "As far as a vegetative state, I don't think she will be in a vegetative state at all."

Because Giffords' husband, Mark E. Kelly, is a member of the Navy and an astronaut, Lemole said, "the resources of the entire military have been made available. Early on, we took advantage and asked two people to come and give consultation, world-famous people" — Dr. Geoffrey Ling, a neurointensivist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., and Dr. James Ecklund of Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia, a retired colonel.

Both have extensive experience with penetrating injuries of the skull. Ling was on his way to Afghanistan when he was recalled and asked to come to Arizona to consult. Both appeared at the news conference and praised the care she had received.

Giffords suffered "a very serious injury, make no mistake," Ling said. "The good news is she is in fact thriving. …However, it is going to be a process now where recovery is dictated by her, day to day. We all are very hopeful, but she is very critically ill from a very serious injury."

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-giffords-update-20110111,0,1099108.story

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Border Patrol agent arrested for harboring twice-deported illegal immigrant -- his father

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was charged Tuesday with harboring his father, a twice-deported illegal immigrant with a criminal record, in his house and then lying about his whereabouts to federal investigators, authorities said.

Marcos Gerardo Manzano Jr., 26, allegedly told his father that authorities were looking for him, and let him live at his residence in a working-class neighborhood of San Ysidro.

His father, Marcos Gerardo Manzano Sr., 46, was convicted of a marijuana offense in October 2006 and deported to Mexico a few months later, according to the criminal complaint filed in San Diego federal court.

Starting in September 2009, Manzano Sr. was seen regularly coming and going from his son's home, according to the complaint. Last month, Manzano Jr. allegedly told an investigator inquiring about his father's whereabouts that he had had no contact with him, although he admitted knowing he was a deported felon.

Manzano Jr. was arrested Monday night at the Border Patrol station in Imperial Beach. When an FBI Swat team raided Manzano Jr.'s home Tuesday morning, his father was gone. Another man in the residence, a deported illegal immigrant, was arrested.

Manzano Jr. is charged with harboring illegal aliens and lying to federal investigators and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. The investigation was headed by the FBI-led Border Corruption Task Force, which was formed to handle a surge of corruption cases in recent years involving federal agents along the Southwest border.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/border-patrol-agent-arrested-for-harboring-twice-deported-illegal-immigrant-his-father.html#more

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L.A. County prosecutors not ready to charge sex assault suspect

L.A. County investigators are told to find more information about the medical histories and level of disabilities of the alleged victims to determine if the acts shown on videotape may have been consensual. One man has been arrested.

by Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

January 12, 2011

Los Angeles County prosecutors said they are not ready to charge one of at least eight men allegedly shown on video sexually assaulting disabled women, saying they need evidence indicating that the acts were not consensual.

Ernie Lloyd, 37, of Los Angeles was arrested Saturday after he turned himself in to Los Angeles police in Hollywood in connection with the assault of an unidentified 25-year-old. The graphic video shows men having sex with women, many of whom appear to be disabled, with some in wheelchairs and wearing diapers.

But prosecutors said the tapes alone are not sufficient evidence, telling L.A. County Sheriff's Department detectives that they need to provide more facts about the women's medical histories, level of disabilities and other information.

"In order to effect a filing, we would either have to prove that the victim did not consent to the sexual acts or she was unable to consent to the sexual acts," the district attorney's office wrote in a memo. "There is insufficient evidence to prove either of these theories beyond a reasonable doubt."

The Sheriff's Department did not directly comment on the district attorney's decision. But in a statement issued after prosecutors had turned back the case, sheriff's officials said they had gathered large amounts of evidence including an intensive interview with an alleged victim, who told them she was sexually assaulted at a residential care facility in Los Angeles.

The department said the woman specifically named Lloyd and a second suspect, Bert Hicks, as being among those who assaulted her, according to the statement. Hicks is already serving a state prison sentence.

Legal experts said prosecutors are being thorough in building their case so they can show that the women in the video in no way consented to the sexual acts.

"That's why the records from care facilities are important, because they would demonstrate the victim's level of mental or physical incapacity," said Dmitry Gorin, a former prosecutor who now is a defense attorney.

He said prosecutors commonly use healthcare records — and caregivers' testimony — in sexual misconduct cases to prove an alleged victim's inability to provide lawful consent.

Sheriff's detectives described Lloyd as Suspect No. 1 in a series of images released last week by investigators in connection with the assaults.

The setback comes a day after sheriff's investigators said they had interviewed an informant who was not identified by detectives because he feared for his safety and who provided them with the video of the assaults that took place between 2007 and 2009 at care facilities in Southern California.

Sheriff's officials announced over the weekend that they had arrested Lloyd and located a second suspect in state prison. Both are believed to be part of a group that allegedly filmed and sexually assaulted at least 10 severely disabled women. Investigators are still looking for at least six other suspects.

The investigation began in March when a package was left at sheriff's headquarters with more than 100 hours of video footage showing the alleged assaults.

Although authorities were confident the scenes were shot in residential care facilities, it was unclear if they were in Los Angeles County. Much of the footage is so grainy that only the faces of four of the estimated 10 men can be seen.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-video-assault-20110112,0,7719449.story?track=rss

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Sen. Boxer calls for tougher federal gun laws in wake of Arizona shooting

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Tuesday called for tougher federal gun laws, including banning large ammunition clips and federal regulations on concealed weapons permits, in the wake of the shooting rampage in Tucson that killed six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) gravely wounded.

Boxer, appearing at a press conference in Riverside, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation also should keep track of seriously mentally ill people with a history of violence to ensure they cannot secure gun permits. The accused Arizona gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, had a history of odd mental behavior and was prone to incoherent rants, authorities and acquaintances said.

"I believe we should look at sensible gun laws again. The kind of gun laws we have here in California that give people their gun ownership rights while also preventing the sale of guns to criminals, to people with serious mental illness and people who may abuse a spouse or partner,'' said Boxer, who traveled to Riverside from her home in Rancho Mirage.

"Now I'm not saying that these sensible gun laws would have stopped this killer, but I do know this: It should not be easy for a killer to obtain a weapon that could kill or wound 20 people in just a few heartbeats, and stop those heartbeats,'' Boxer said.

Boxer said Congress should consider reinstating the federal assault weapons ban which expired in 2004. The law banned ammunition clips that hold more than 10 bullets. Boxer said she will support a proposal by Democratic New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg to ban high-capacity clips such as the 33-round clip that authorities said was attached to Loughner's semiautomatic handgun.

The senator also wants to federalize California's laws on concealed weapons permits, which require approval from local sheriff's or police chiefs and require applicants to explain why the weapons permit is necessary. States that fail to adopt those restrictions should lose federal funding for criminal justice programs, she said.

During the morning news conference, Boxer also called on Congress, the media and the nation as a whole to temper the caustic political rhetoric that's consumed most of the country. As an example, she held up a mock "Liberal Hunting License" that recently was sold on a right-leaning website that showed a donkey –- the symbol of the Democratic party –- with five bullet holes in its torso.

Boxer called on members of Congress from all parties to meet on a more regular basis to help end the partisan rancor. She said that the women in the Senate already do so, with great success.

"We need to rethink what we're saying and the emotions that we may be evoking,'' Boxer said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/sen-boxer-calls-for-tougher-federal-gun-laws-in-wake-of-arizona-shooting.html

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From the New York Times

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Police Say They Visited Tucson Suspect's Home Even Before Rampage

TUCSON — The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday that left a congresswoman fighting for her life and six others dead, the Pima County Sheriff's Department said on Tuesday.

A spokesman, Jason Ogan, said the details of the calls were being reviewed by legal counsel and would be released as soon as the review was complete. He said he did not know what the calls were about — they could possibly have been minor, even trivial matters — or whether they involved Jared Loughner or another member of the household.

A friend of Mr. Loughner's also said in an interview on Tuesday that Mr. Loughner, 22, was skilled with a gun — as early as high school — and had talked about a philosophy of fostering chaos.

The news of police involvement with the Loughners suggests that county sheriff's deputies were at least familiar with the family, even if the reason for their visits was unclear as of Tuesday night.

The account by Mr. Loughner's friend, a rare extended interview with someone close to Mr. Loughner in recent years, added some details to the emerging portrait of the suspect and his family.

“He was a nihilist and loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head,” said Zane Gutierrez, 21, who was living in a trailer outside Tucson and met Mr. Loughner sometimes to shoot at cans for target practice.

The Loughner family released a statement on Tuesday, its first since the attacks, expressing — in a six-line document handed to reporters outside their house — sorrow for the losses experienced by the victims and their families.

“It may not make any difference, but we wish that we could change the heinous events of Saturday,” the statement said. “There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish that there were, so we could make you feel better.”

The new details from Mr. Gutierrez about Mr. Loughner — including his philosophy of anarchy and his expertise with a handgun, suggest that the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago.

Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche's book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings.

“Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.”

And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange.

“He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?' He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don't talk about that stuff.”

He added that Mr. Loughner “used the word hollow to describe how fake the real world was to him.”

As his behavior grew more puzzling to his friends, he was getting better with a pistol. Starting in high school, Mr. Loughner honed his marksmanship with a 9-millimeter pistol, the same caliber weapon used in the attack Saturday, until he became proficient at handling the weapon and firing it quickly.

“If he had a gun pointed at me, there is nothing I could do because he would make it count,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “He was quick.”

He also said that Mr. Loughner had increasing trouble interacting in social settings — during one party, for instance, Mr. Loughner retreated upstairs alone to a room and was found reading a dictionary.

Jared Loughner's retreat — whether into the desert with his gun, or into the recesses of his dreams — coincided with a broader retreat by the Loughner family that left them increasingly isolated from their community, neighbors said.

His father, Randy, once more of a presence in their mostly working-class neighborhood in northwest Tucson as he went off to work as a carpet-layer and pool-deck installer, became a silent and often sullen presence.

One neighbor, George Gayan, who said he had known the family for 30 years, described a kind of a gradual “pulling back” by the family.

“People do this for different reasons,” said Mr. Gayan, 82. “I don't know why.”

Some years ago, Randy Loughner built a wall to shield the side porch of the family's home. Because of his often bellicose attitude, neighbors sometimes kept their distance.

Leslie Cooper owns the house next door, where her son and his family live. She recounted a time when her grandchildren would not chase after a ball that landed in the Loughners' backyard.

“They had to buy a new one,” said Ms. Cooper, who was told of the incident by her son. “I'd tell my son, those are not normal people over there — there's a reason why they stick to themselves,” she said, adding that she had warned him to steer clear of Randy Loughner.

“I said, be careful around that guy — don't get him angry,” she added.

Other people in the neighborhood, though, said they saw glimpses of compassion in the Loughner family, and an ability to reach out to others, sometimes unexpectedly.

Richard Mckinley, 41, whose mother lives down the street from the Loughners, said his mother appreciated how Randy and Amy Loughner were among the first people to visit when her husband died two years ago.

“They were some of the first people to pay respects,” he said.

In contrast to the reputation of his father, Jared Loughner's mother, Amy, is considered pleasant but reserved by those who know her.

She commuted about an hour each day to her job managing Agua Caliente Park, an area of spring-fed ponds surrounded by giant palm trees in the desert on the outskirts of Tucson. The impeccably maintained park was quiet Tuesday, but for the chirping of the dozens of species of birds that call it home and the occasional crunch of a birder's hiking boots along the trails.

Donna DeHaan, a former board member of the nonprofit group that helps support the park, said Ms. Loughner was a reliable manager with a good background in environmental issues. Ms. DeHaan said she never spoke about her family but was always pleasant, if a tad quiet and shy.

Mr. Gutierrez said he sensed very little communication within the family when he was among them.

“Every time I met his parents they were kind of quiet and estranged,” he said. Jared Loughner did not complain about his parents, Mr. Gutierrez said, and seemed to simply accept the lack of interaction as a fact of life.

“Jared really did not talk to his parents or talk about them,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “I felt they were not really good reaching out and he was not good at reaching out to his parents.”

After his arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, Mr. Loughner was ordered to attend a diversion program run by the county attorney's office. The chief deputy county attorney, Amelia Craig Cramer, said the program is intended for first-time offenders who have no history of violence or serious mental illness.

Mr. Loughner was referred to an approved drug education program, and completed the required sessions in 30 days.

But the program is primarily educational, Ms. Cramer said, focused on “the dangers of drugs and the dangers of substance abuse,” rather than the kind of in-depth counseling that friends, including Mr. Gutierrez, strongly felt that Mr. Loughner needed.

“It got worse over time,” Mr. Gutierrez said. He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling.

“He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?' He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend. “He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12loughner.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

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Legal Strategy Could Hinge on Mental Assessment

The disturbing photograph of Jared L. Loughner that was released after his arrest, as well as the writings and statements attributed to him, seemed to point to a man with a mental disorder.

Even if that is found to be true, the lawyers for Mr. Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout who has been charged in the Tucson shootings, may find it difficult to mount a successful insanity defense.

The rules regarding such a legal strategy were tightened over the years in the wake of the verdict for John W. Hinckley Jr., who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. The insanity argument is now seldom successful, legal experts said.

What is more likely, they say, is that Mr. Loughner's lawyers will use any mental health problems they find to stave off the death penalty, if he should go to trial and be convicted.

His lawyer, Judy Clarke, is likely to begin a far-ranging investigation of his life and family history, going back several generations to learn as much as possible about his origins, the environment in which he grew up and how he has functioned in society, said David I. Bruck, who worked with Ms. Clarke in the defense of Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two young sons in 1994 and who received a life sentence.

Ms. Clarke “will present a case which is focused, grounded in the facts, thorough and heartfelt,” said Mr. Bruck, a veteran death-penalty lawyer and a professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. “She won't try to sell what she wouldn't buy. She's going to find this man's story, and once she's found it, she's going to be confident about telling it to a jury.”

But just where Ms. Clarke will tell that story — and before how many juries — is unclear.

The defense could ask that Mr. Loughner's case be moved from Arizona out of concern that potential jurors might be influenced by news accounts.

Mr. Loughner (pronounced LOF-ner) may also have to be defended in separate trials brought by federal and state prosecutors, who are both likely to seek the death penalty.

The federal government has charged Mr. Loughner in the killings of two federal employees — Judge John M. Roll, the chief federal judge for Arizona, and Gabriel Zimmerman, an aide to Representative Gabrielle Giffords -- and the Pima County attorney, Barbara LaWall, has said she will “pursue charges on behalf of the nonfederal victims.”

Her office has been researching the issue of whether it can proceed at the same time as the federal prosecutors, or whether the state's case will have to wait until the United States attorney's office has finished its work.

“I think initially there'll be some confusion as to who's going to go first, and how fast they are going to go,” said Rory Little, a former Justice Department official in the Clinton administration who teaches at the Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

“I would guess that you're having some pretty intense discussions now between the federal government and the state side, and it wouldn't surprise me to see the case divided up,” he said.

Either way, federal and state prosecutors would have two opportunities to seek the death penalty against Mr. Loughner if they chose to do so. That occurred in the case stemming from the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people, including infants and children in a day care center. One defendant, Timothy J. McVeigh, received the death penalty at his federal trial, but a second, Terry L. Nichols, did not.

Mr. Nichols was tried again, on state charges, in McAlester, Okla. He was again spared execution.

Beth A. Wilkinson, a member of the federal prosecution team in the Oklahoma City case, said of the Tucson shootings: “In a crime like this, it's also very important to recognize the state's interest in prosecuting murder and attempted murder of their citizens. The vast majority of murder cases are prosecuted by state authorities.”

Neither the Justice Department nor the Pima County attorney's office have said if it would pursue the death penalty against Mr. Loughner.

One of Ms. Clarke's critical early steps will be to argue against any federal death-penalty case through a written submission and in meetings with federal prosecutors in Arizona and with the Justice Department's Capital Case Committee in Washington. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will have the final say.

Aitan D. Goelman, who also was involved in the federal prosecution of the Oklahoma City case, said he doubted that an effort to block a death-penalty prosecution would prevail. “These kinds of cases are essentially the reason we have the federal death penalty,” he said.

The federal complaint against Mr. Loughner charges him with the murders of Judge Roll and Mr. Zimmerman, along with the attempted murders of Ms. Giffords, who was struck in the head but survived, and of two of her staff members, Pamela Simon and Ronald Barber, who were both wounded and were expected to recover.

One complication is that Mr. Loughner's lawyers can only pursue the insanity defense if the defendant approves, said Stephen J. Morse, a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It cannot be imposed on a defendant over his objection,” Professor Morse said.

He said that lawyers in federal court tend to regard the insanity plea as “a defense of last resort, because juries are skeptical of claims that a defendant was not responsible for his actions.”

Still, he said, given early accounts of the evidence that has surfaced in the Tucson case — that Mr. Loughner appears to have carefully planned his attack on Ms. Giffords — his only chance might be to invoke such a defense.

“Based on the early information,” Professor Morse said, “I would be surprised if he didn't, because he seems to have no other defense as far as I can tell.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/us/12legal.html?hp

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Bit by Bit, a Mexican Police Force Is Eradicated

GUADALUPE DISTRITO BRAVOS, Mexico — Her uncle, the mayor who gave her the job nobody else wanted, warned her to keep a low profile, to not make too much of being the last remaining police officer in a town where the rest of the force had quit or been killed.

But in pictures for local newspapers, Érika Gándara, 28, seemed to relish the role, posing with a semiautomatic rifle and talking openly about the importance of her new job.

“I am the only police in this town, the authority,” she told reporters.

Then, two days before Christmas, a group of armed men took her from her home, residents say, and she has not been seen since.

It was an ominous punctuation mark on the wave of terror that has turned this cotton farming town near Texas into a frightened outpost of the drug war. Nearly half of its 9,000 residents have fled, local officials say, leaving block after block of scorched homes and businesses and, now, not one regular police officer.

Far from big, infamous cities like Ciudad Juárez, one of the most violent places in the Americas, the war with organized crime can batter small towns just as hard, if with less notice.

The cotton towns south of Juárez sit in territory disputed by at least two major drug trafficking groups, according to government and private security reports, leading to deadly power struggles. But the lack of adequately trained police officers, a longstanding crisis that the government has sought to address with little resolution, allows criminal groups to have their way.

“Small cities and towns are really highly impacted,” said Daniel M. Sabet, a visiting professor at Georgetown University who studies policing in Mexico. “They offer strongholds organized crime can hold and control.”

Some towns consider themselves so vulnerable that they have gone out of their way not to antagonize criminals. Believing that those involved in organized crime would be less inclined to harm women — and because fewer men are willing to take the job — local officials have appointed a handful of women in the past year to senior police ranks in small cities and towns here in Chihuahua, the country's most violent state.

After a spate of violence in a neighboring town, Praxédis Guerrero, local officials selected a 20-year-old college student in November as police chief to run the force of nine women and two men, hoping that criminal networks would see her as less threatening.

Marisol Valles, the young police chief, has made it clear that she leaves major crimes to state and federal authorities to investigate. Really, she said, she just reviews civil infractions issued by other officers and rarely leaves the office. “I am more like an administrator,” said Ms. Valles, who does not carry a gun or wear a uniform.

But the criminals have not discriminated. Hermila García, the woman appointed police chief of Meoqui, a small city in central Chihuahua, was killed on Nov. 30 after only a month in the job.

Guadalupe tried to put a nonthreatening face on law enforcement by appointing Ms. Gándara chief in October. But it appears that she tried — or at least talked about — taking the job more seriously, to the regret of her uncle, Mayor Tomás Archuleta. He had good reason to counsel a low profile: He took office after his predecessor was killed last summer, part of a wave of assassinations of local officials across Mexico.

“I told Érika, ‘Be careful,' to not make waves,” Mr. Archuleta said, openly frustrated by the picture of her with the rifle. Like Ms. Valles, her role is more to issue citations, leaving serious crimes to state and federal authorities.

Guadalupe has plenty of them to investigate. There are as many abandoned homes and businesses — several of them gutted — as occupied ones. One recent morning, four homes smoldered from an attack and two people had been shot dead with high-powered weapons, the bullets leaving several gaping holes in cinder-block walls.

Few people here leave their homes after 5 p.m., and see soldiers and police officers only briefly after a major crime or when they are guarding the monthly delivery of government pension checks for retirees.

“We lock ourselves in most of the time,” said Eduardo Contreras, 26, as he watched residents douse and pick through the embers of their smoldering homes.

In a voice choked with tears, María Torres, 70, who grew up here, said, “This is so sad what has happened here,” as she carried a sign for a church service.

Mr. Archuleta, the mayor, said the town mainly gets its protection from soldiers based at a recreation center in Praxédis Guerrero. Maybe, Mr. Archuleta suggested, not having local police officers is better. He said local residents had told him that common crimes like burglary had dropped out of fear of drawing the attention of a military patrol.

“There aren't any” minor crimes, he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

But townspeople disputed that, complaining that the soldiers or state and federal police officers were rarely seen except after major violence had occurred.

“There is no police, no fire department, no social services, nothing here,” said the middle-aged matriarch from one burned-out home, declining to give her name for fear of reprisals. “People get away with everything here. Nothing gets investigated, not even murders.”

Not long afterward, a four-truck caravan of federal police officers arrived from another town, hopping down from their vehicles, taking notes and asking her and other family members for a word. The family refused even to open the gate for the police, apparently out of fear of being seen talking to them, and the officers moved on. The officers appeared to be taking stock, driving from crime scene to crime scene and taking notes, but not mounting a forensic investigation.

At the site of the double murder in the morning, one officer dabbed at a pool of blood and body fluid on the driveway with a stick; another picked up a piece of flesh and playfully tossed it at a companion.

Ms. Gándara may not have investigated much deeper. Local police officers in small towns usually play a mostly preventive role, refereeing minor disputes, handling the town drunk and quieting rowdy teenagers, city managers said. Many are not armed.

Mr. Archuleta would say little else about his niece, Ms. Gándara, citing an investigation by the state prosecutor's office, which would not comment on a motive. But he noted that he had turned to her when nobody else would take the job. She had experience as a security guard and appeared not to be involved in any criminal activity, he said.

“Who knows what people do in their private lives,” he said, “but I did not think she was involved in anything.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/world/americas/12mexico.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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From the FBI

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Over the years , other FBI field offices began offering the SOS program with the help of their community outreach specialists. By October 2010, our Cyber Division at FBI Headquarters—which manages our Innocent Images National Initiative, focused on online child predators—took the SOS program under its wing and made it a national one. Today, more than 90,000 children in 41 states have completed it.

How it works. At each grade level, third through eighth, students begin by taking pre-quizzes to test their overall knowledge. Then, a scavenger hunt takes them to pre-screened websites where they get Internet safety and cyber citizenship information. And finally, they take timed post-quizzes to demonstrate what they've learned. The program also promotes a fun competition between schools: every month—from September through May—schools with the highest scoring students in the nation are awarded the FBI-SOS Trophy.  

Topics covered in the program run the cyber gamut: depending on the age of the students, they might learn about password security, cyberbullying, virus protection, copyright issues, online predators, e-mail, chat rooms, social networking sites, when to talk to parents or teachers about a threat, and appropriate uses of cell phones and gaming devices.

Of the SOS program, Cyber Division Assistant Director Gordon Snow said, “The Internet is a powerful resource for our youth, but it also presents opportunities for those who would attempt to do them harm…the Safe Online Surfing program is designed to teach young people what they need to know to avoid falling victim to individuals who want to take advantage of their youth and innocence.”

Schools interested in signing up for the Safe Online Surfing program should contact the community outreach specialist in their local FBI office.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/january/online_011111/online_011111

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FBI Releases Bank Crime Statistics for Third Quarter of 2010

During the third quarter of 2010, there were 1,325 reported violations of the Federal Bank Robbery and Incidental Crimes Statue, an increase from the 1,212 reported violations in the same quarter of 2009. 1 According to statistics released today by the FBI, there were 1,310 robberies, 13 burglaries, two larcenies and six extortions of financial institutions 2 reported between July 1, 2010 and Sept. 30, 2010.

Highlights of the report include:

• Loot was taken in 90 percent of the incidents, totaling more than $9.3 million.
• Of the loot taken, 20 percent, or nearly $1.4 million, was recovered and returned to financial institutions.
• Bank crimes most frequently occurred on Friday. Regardless of the day, the time frame when bank crimes occurred most frequently was between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
• Acts of violence were committed in 4 percent of the incidents, resulting in 21 injuries, four deaths, and nine people being taken hostage. 3
• Demand notes were the most common modus operandi used, closely followed by oral demands. 4
• Most violations occurred in the southern region of the U.S., with 482 reported incidents.

These statistics were recorded as of October. 27, 2010. Note that not all bank crimes are reported to the FBI, and therefore the report is not a complete statistical compilation of all bank crimes that occurred in the U.S.

1 In the third quarter of 2009, there were 1,184 robberies and 28 burglaries. No larcenies or extortions were reported.
2 Financial institutions include commercial banks, mutual savings banks, savings and loan associations and credit unions.
3 One or more acts of violence may occur during an incident.
4 More than one modus operandi may have been used during an incident.

View the entire report

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