Redstate: Outspoken Sheriff Accused Of Dismissing Loughner Death Threats

Public memorial set for Arizona shooting victims
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The city shaken by a shooting rampage that killed six people and left 14 injured prepared to come together at a church Tuesday to mourn the Victims, including a 9-year-old girl who sang in the choir. Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas will preside over the first official tribute to the victims at St. Odilia Catholic Church. The Diocese called the service a “Mass of healing for our community.” The modern turquoise-and-white church is only blocks from Saturday̵...

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

Supercop: Theres no doubt Dupnik was affected by rhetoric, although I have no evidence of it
Skip ahead to 1:30 for Matthews’s question about “atmospherics,” followed by Dupnik casually asserting that Loughner must have been especially vulnerable to “anger, hate, paranoia, and so forth.” If he has proof of that, he conveniently forgot to mention it. Over to you, Arizona Republic: Was Dupnik unnecessarily inflammatory? It seemed so. But it came mere hours following a horrific, bloody mass Murder. If you weren’t on edge, you weren’t Being Human....

There Is No Evidence That Politics In Any Way Contributed To This Atrocity: Arizonas Biggest Newspaper Rips Leftist Political Op
Arizona Republic: On Saturday afternoon, with his friend Gabby Giffords in surgery fighting for her life, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik railed against the tense partisan politics - “the anger, the hatred, the Bigotry” - that prompted the mass Murders outside Tucson, in his view. And, jarring as such claims may be, we understood. Or tried to understand, despite the spectacle of a lawman - an official whose very job it is to dispassionately gather facts and to...

Picture Of Suspect's Troubled Life Comes Into Focus
In his own way, Jared Loughner did try to fit in. Before everything fell apart, the 22-year-old did what a lot of people his age do these days: Lived at home with his parents, went to community college, worked low-wage jobs at big-box stores and volunteered his time for a cause he believed in. None of it worked. His relationship with his parents was strained. He struggled at school and eventually got kicked out. He clashed with co-workers and police. And he couldn't follow the rules at an animal...

New Shooting Details: Loughner's Angry Note
With all the evidence against the suspected Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, a Guilty verdict could still prove very difficult. Jan Crawford reports on the latest details of the case. (CBA/AP) The 22-year-old man accused of trying to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting rampage wrote "Die, bitch" in a note found at his home, a sheriff's official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Investigators believe the handwritten message was a reference to Giffords, Pima County Chief Ri...

APNewsBreak: More warning signs on day of shooting (AP)
TUCSON, Ariz. – The 22-year-old man accused of trying to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting rampage wrote "Die, bitch" in a note found at his home, a sheriff's official told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Investigators believe Jared Loughner's handwritten message was a reference to Giffords, Pima County Chief Rick Kastigar said. It was found in a safe alongside other ones, including "I planned ahead," "My Assassination" and the name "Giffords." Authorities also re...

Bet on Stupid
With College Football now over, the folks doing online sports gambling at betus.com have one less sport to wager on this time of year. I'd suggest they put together a line on which opportunistic politicians and social commentators will make the dumbest statements or propose the most preposterous laws in the wake of Jared Loughner's 20-victim rampage in Tucson this past Saturday. Peter King's self-serving, dim-witted, and no-doubt Unconstitutional attempt to build a 1,000 foot gun-free zone aro...

Honor the victims by voting
Trying to make some sense out of the tragedy in Arizona isn't easy. How did it happen? Why did it happen? What can we do, if anything, to keep it from happening again? These all are questions I can't stop thinking about. What does it mean for the Average American? But perhaps it's the killing of 9-year-old Christina Green that is, for me, the most egregious example of not only what is wrong in our society today but also what can be right, if we choose to make some much-needed changes in our co...

In Arizona, Obama to honor memories, speak of hope
WASHINGTON — Under high expectations to provide healing, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will try to convert the horror of the Arizona shootings into a moment of national unity, centering his memorial Speech in Tucson on the lives of the Victims and the heroism of those who rushed to stop the madness. The president was crafting his Speech on Tuesday, and his aides were reluctant to discuss it even broadly in its unfinished form, other than to say it will emphasize the memories of tho...

Accused gunman's family 'so very sorry' for shootings
Provide feedback to the multimedia producers. Thank you. Your feedback was successfully sent. Video will begin in 5 seconds. What type of connection do you have? Your video format settings have been saved. President Obama says the US continues to grieve the shooting in Arizona which left six people dead. The family of accused Tucson gunman Jared Loughner has apologised to the relatives of those he is accused of gunning down, saying in a first statement since the shooting, "we are so very sorry f...

Budget cuts, stigma cause mentally ill to fall through cracks (The Lookout)
State Budget cuts, as well as a widespread stigma attached to Mental Illness, may have made it easier for the suspect in Saturday's deadly Tucson shootings to slip through the cracks despite clear signs of Mental Illness, according to Mental Health advocates in Arizona and nationally. Cuts to Arizona's Mental Health services wiped out funding for the kind of early detection and intervention programs that might have steered the shooting suspect, Jared Loughner, into treatment, they say. But a b...

Rep. Giffords' condition improves after shooting
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - Representative Gabrielle Giffords is breathing on her own and doctors on Tuesday were hopeful about her recovery from a head wound suffered in an Arizona Shooting Spree that killed six people. Giffords, a popular 40-year-old Democrat, is still in critical condition at a Tucson Hospital but is "holding her own," responding to simple commands and breathing without the aid of her ventilation tube, her doctor said. "She has no right to look this good. We're hopeful," Dr. ...

Tighter Gun-control Laws A Long Shot
(NewsCore) - The Tucson shootings have renewed an effort among Northeast lawmakers to strengthen federal gun-control laws, but a partisan climate and an influential gun lobby mean that talk may be as far as it gets, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. On Tuesday, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), whose husband was killed by a lone gunman in a 1993 Shooting Spree, said she would introduce Legislation to reinstate a ban on high-capacity magazines like the one used by the Tucson shooter. Rep. P...

The Issue Is Guns
There is little question that political discourse in the United States in the early 21st century will never be confused with the Lincoln-Douglas debate. Political combatants take an unseemly delight in characterizing opponents as enemies of the state, and reasonably decent public servants can expect to be labeled as pinheads and traitors, puppets of capital and apologists for Terrorism. This has been going on for some time; indeed, historians will note that no election in recent memory surpass...

A Tale of Two Sheriffs
The Tucson massacre that left six dead and injured 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, brought into sharp public focus the local sheriff, Clarence Dupnik. He’s been the sheriff of Pima County, which includes Tucson, Arizona’s second-largest city, for 30 years. For the 20 years before that, he was a police officer. Dupnik has gained attention this week for linking the shooting to the vitriolic political climate in the U.S., and in particular, Arizona. Speaking at a Press Conference...

Do classrooms hold lessons on the link between rhetoric and violence?
No one has yet blamed Jared Loughner's teachers for his violent mind-set and actions in Arizona, but teachers and parents have long been aware that inflammatory Rhetoric can spark agitation in Children. Did increasingly hostile political Rhetoric incite Loughner to violence? Of course not -- we know that from exhaustive studies of children exposed to television and Video Game violence. But we still bear a responsibility to teach and model Civil Discourse. Does Sarah Palin's "take back the 20" W...

Second-guessing red flags, action taken in Tucson case
The colleges are 2,000 miles apart, but the scenarios are eerily similar: a troubled Student triggers red flags in the classroom, bringing Campus Police and university administrators in to deal with bizarre behavior. Some action is taken, but the Student nevertheless unravels and ends up on a slow path to an alleged murderous rampage. Those are among the parallels between accused Arizona gunman Jared Loughner and Virginia Tech assassin Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in a day of horror in a ...

In Arizona, Obama to honor memories, speak of hope (AP)
WASHINGTON – Under high expectations to provide healing, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will try to convert the horror of the Arizona shootings into a moment of national unity, centering his memorial Speech in Tucson on the lives of the Victims and the heroism of those who rushed to stop the madness. The president was crafting his Speech on Tuesday, and his aides were reluctant to discuss it even broadly in its unfinished form, other than to say it will emphasize the memories of tho...

In Arizona, Obama to honor memories, speak of hope
WASHINGTON—Under high expectations to provide healing, President Barack Obama on Wednesday will try to convert the horror of the Arizona shootings into a moment of national unity, centering his memorial Speech in Tucson on the lives of the Victims and the heroism of those who rushed to stop the madness. The president was crafting his Speech on Tuesday, and his aides were reluctant to discuss it even broadly in its unfinished form, other than to say it will emphasize the memories of those ...

Radical leftist punk band inspired accused gunman
Jared Loughner, the alleged Arizona assassin, may have been inspired by the radical leftist punk-rock band Anti-Flag, one of his favorite bands, according to a schoolmate who posted on Twitter.com her reminiscences about her association with Loughner. Loughner, 22, is in custody accused of opening fire into a crowd in Tucson, Ariz., killing six and critically wounding Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Understand what's happening to America's culture and what you can do to fight it with ...

Tea Party & Bernie Sanders Using Tucson Tragedy For Fundraising
I bet you never thought you’d see those two in the same headline. I’m a bit surprised myself. Bernie should know better. From The Weekly Standard comes the text of the email from Sanders… Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reel...

Gabrielle Giffords Could Have Good Recovery
Gabrielle Giffords hasn't had a lot of good news after being shot over the weekend, with neurosurgeons arguing that the member of the House of Representatives has made significant progress. But the difference between neurosurgeons and the general public is what their notion of good progress is. To neurosurgeons, all Giffords has to do is move fingers, or blink eyes, but they're also worried about the still swelling Brain, according to CNN. Some sort of long-term damage still seems likely, but the prog

The Consequences of Inflamed Rhetoric
By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about what happened in Arizona over the weekend.  In case you’ve managed to avoid the news for the past few days, though, Rep. Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords (D-Arizona), U.S. District Judge John Roll, and eighteen others were shot by a lone gunman at a “Congress on your Corner” event held by Rep. Giffords. A medical Helicopter evacuates Victims from a “Congress on Your Corner” event in Tucson, Arizona, where U....

A Very American Conspiracy Theory - By Kathryn Olmsted
Whether or not Jared Loughner is mentally ill, it's clear that his shooting rampage last weekend, which took six lives and critically injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was motivated, at least in part, by his conspiratorial views of the U.S. government. According to his friends, he believed that Washington faked The Moon landing and orchestrated the 9/11 attacks; that the Federal Reserve was a Jewish plot; and that the government was trying to control his brain through grammar. ...