Second-guessing red flags, action taken in Tucson case

Dealing With Mental Disorders on Campus
Jared Loughner, the shooter in Tucson, behaved so bizarrely in classes at Pima Community College that his algebra instructor and other Students reached out to school authorities. Mr. Loughner was eventually suspended and told that he could not return unless he had a Mental Health consultation. It is not clear whether the matter ended there. Mental health services have increased on college campuses, but not enough to keep pace with the growing needs of Students dealing with serious mental illnes...

Shooting suspect fell through mental health cracks
(01-12) 13:11 PST Tucson, Ariz. (AP) -- Jared Loughner had never been in major trouble with the law or overtly violent, but his behavior at his community college was so disturbing that Campus Police gave him and his parents an ultimatum: Get a Mental Health evaluation or don't come back. Loughner went away but his deteriorating mental condition didn't. Just more than three months later, he is charged in a horrific Mass Shooting that killed six people and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords clinging t...

Shooting Suspect Fell through Mental Health Cracks
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 By Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press Tucson, Ariz. (AP) - Jared Loughner had never been in major trouble with the law or overtly violent, but his behavior at his community college was so disturbing that Campus Police gave him and his parents an ultimatum: Get a Mental Health evaluation or don't come back. Loughner went away but his deteriorating mental condition didn't. A year later, he is charged in a horrific Mass Shooting that killed six people and left Rep. G...

Finally: Dupnik releases police reports on Loughner, family
There were no missed red flags as far as I can tell. The Arizona Republic has brief summaries of 12 reports, the most damning of which involve him being drunk at school and being caught with pot paraphernalia while driving with his friend. See the Smoking Gun for more details. In fact, until the morning of the shooting, when he was stopped for running a red light but behaved unsuspiciously with the officer, Loughner had no run-ins with county police since 2008 — which at first blush seem...

Due To Arizona Conflicts, California Judge Takes Over Loughner Case
U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of California Larry A. Burns will handle the case against Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged gunman behind the Mass Shooting on Saturday, according to documents filed with the court on Wednesday. All Federal Judges in Arizona have been conflicted out because U.S. District Judge John M. Roll was one of the six Victims of the shooting. "Based upon the circumstances occurring on January 8, 2011 in Tucson and the initiation of proceedings in conjunc...

California federal judge appointed in Arizona shooting case
A Federal Judge from California has been appointed to preside over upcoming hearings in the case of Jared Lee Loughner, the accused gunman in Saturday's Killing Spree in Tucson, Arizona. Judge Larry Burns is a 2003 Bush Appointee serving in the U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. The next federal hearing in the case is scheduled for January 24 in Phoenix. All federal judges in Arizona have recused themselves from hearing the case after Judge John Roll, the chief federa...

Could Arizona shooting have been prevented?
WASHINGTON - Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old Arizona man charged with killing six people and injuring 12 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, clearly scared more than a few people. Instructors at his college, as well as friends and neighbors, have said they expressed concerns about Loughner’s behavior in the months before he opened fire at a gathering at a Tucson Shopping Mall on Saturday. Could Loughner have been stopped? Psychiatrists see several problems: a lack...

Could Arizona shooting have been prevented?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old Arizona man charged with killing six people and injuring 12 others, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, clearly scared more than a few people. Instructors at his college, as well as friends and neighbors, have said they expressed concerns about Loughner's behavior in the months before he opened fire at a gathering at a Tucson Shopping Mall on Saturday. Could Loughner have been stopped? Psychiatrists see several problems: a...

The massacre in Arizona
There is no way to make sense of an act as senseless as the shooting rampage Saturday that killed six and wounded 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, outside an Arizona Grocery Store. Witnesses reported the gunman strode up to Giffords and fired, point blank, at her head. Then he turned and fired haphazardly into the crowd. Killed were John M. Roll, a Federal Judge; Gabe Zimmerman, Giffords' director of community outreach; Phyllis Schneck, a Retiree and widow; Dorwin Stoddard, who shielded hi...

David Frum Blames AZ Shooting on Reefer Madness
Jared Lee Loughner is accused of shooting 20 people in Tucson, Arizona. The former Bush Speechwriter who coined the term “Axis of Evil” claims a link between Jared Lee Loughner, schizophrenia and pot-smoking. Forget guns, “The Tucson shooting should remind us why we regulate Marijuana.” Much of our culture’s historic intolerance for marijuana grew out of Racism and the quack science used to justify it. Frum acknowledges in his blog post that “The connection b...

Shooting suspect fell through mental health cracks
Jared Loughner had never been in major trouble with the law or overtly violent, but his behavior at his community college was so disturbing that Campus Police gave him and his parents an ultimatum: Get a Mental Health evaluation or don't come back. Loughner went away but his deteriorating mental condition didn't. A year later, he is charged in a horrific Mass Shooting that killed six people and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords clinging to life. For those living with mentally ill family members or fr...

Obama visits wounded Congresswoman Giffords (Reuters)
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – President Barack Obama visited wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday to begin an emotional trip to Arizona as political leaders condemned the deadly Shooting Spree in Tucson. Obama's Motorcade carried him to University Medical Center shortly after he landed in Tucson to address a memorial service for the six killed and 14 wounded by a gunman who opened fire while Giffords met voters last Saturday. "The president wanted to begin this s...

Obama visits wounded Congressman Giffords
By Jeff Mason and Tim Gaynor TUCSON, Arizona | Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:05pm EST TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - President Barack Obama visited wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday to begin an emotional trip to Arizona as political leaders condemned the deadly Shooting Spree in Tucson. Obama's Motorcade carried him to University Medical Center shortly after he landed in Tucson to address a memorial service for the six killed and 14 wounded by a gunman who opened fire while Giffords me...

Obama visits wounded Congresswoman Giffords
By Jeff Mason and Tim Gaynor TUCSON, Arizona | Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:05pm EST TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - President Barack Obama visited wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday to begin an emotional trip to Arizona as political leaders condemned the deadly Shooting Spree in Tucson. Obama's Motorcade carried him to University Medical Center shortly after he landed in Tucson to address a memorial service for the six killed and 14 wounded by a gunman who opened fire while Giffords me...

Obama visits wounded Congressman Giffords
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - President Barack Obama visited wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday to begin an emotional trip to Arizona as political leaders condemned the deadly Shooting Spree in Tucson. Obama's Motorcade carried him to University Medical Center shortly after he landed in Tucson to address a memorial service for the six killed and 14 wounded by a gunman who opened fire while Giffords met voters last Saturday. "The president wanted to begin this solemn trip by st...

Obama visits wounded Congresswoman Giffords
TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - President Barack Obama visited wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords on Wednesday to begin an emotional trip to Arizona as political leaders condemned the deadly Shooting Spree in Tucson. Obama's Motorcade carried him to University Medical Center shortly after he landed in Tucson to address a memorial service for the six killed and 14 wounded by a gunman who opened fire while Giffords met voters last Saturday. "The president wanted to begin this solemn trip by st...

Psychiatrist Weighs In On Attitudes Toward Mental Illness After Loughner
What is this? In an opinion piece in today's Baltimore Sun, Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist Larry Wissow argues that there are still real barriers to getting care for people with apparent Mental Health concerns like the alleged Tucson shooter Jared Loughner. Wissow can't, of course, definitively diagnose Loughner, whom he's never met. But Wissow writes, "accounts of Jared Loughner's prior behavior strongly suggest that he was psychotic — not just 'wacky,' but having a definable, treatable menta...

Blame Game
After two teenagers stalked through classrooms killing fellow Students at Columbine High School in 1999, many observers suggested that violent Video Games might be partially to blame. Violent Games were still relatively new at the time, and they made an attractive target to media moralizers. The charge pervaded for quite a while: Some of the relatives of those killed at Columbine sued a group of video game makers in 2001, and in 2007, a Portland Psychiatrist—who has since pushed for Internet ...

Douglas LaBier: The Changing Face of Psychological Health
The aftermath of the Tucson shootings is likely to spawn new discussion about serious Mental Illness and it's legal implications. Coincidentally, the Mental Health establishment has been debating what to include or exclude as a mental and emotional disorder, for the forthcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. For example, one Controversy is whether to remove narcissism as a bonafide disorder. In contrast to discussion about mental disorders, I think we've...

Why Was Jared Loughner Allowed to Buy a Gun?
Yahoo! Buzz Prior to his violent rampage on Saturday, Jared Loughner, by most accounts that have emerged, was a young man struggling with Mental Illness. So why then was he allowed to buy a gun? In Wednesday’s WSJ, reporters Vanessa O’Connell and Gary Fields tackle the question, noting that it’s not exactly an easy one to answer. States struggle, they write, to keep guns out of the hands of those struggling with mental-illness. Let us, with O’Connell and Fields’s he...

Byron Williams: We just lost a bit more of our innocence
Because of the unprecedented manner that America was fast tracked from fledgling upstart to world power, there is a tendency to forget we still cling to aspects of innocence that belie our world power status. In addition to events such as the JFK Assassination, Oklahoma City and 9/11 tragedies, we must also add last week's shooting in Tucson, AZ, to the glossary of transformative moments that robbed more of our innocence. A deranged young man shot 20 people, six fatally, during Rep. Gabrielle ...

Sec. of State Hillary Clinton on Jared Loughner's 'Extremism'
ABC's Luis Martinez Reports: In a sit-down interview with CNN’s Jill Dougherty, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked to explain comments she made on an overseas trip about Extremists and Jared Loughner, the man accused of shooting of Rep. Giffords and 18 others in Tucson over the weekend.    Read more about her initial comments, in which she called Loughner an extremist, HERE . Clinton explained on CNN that pursuing criminal activity connected to politica...

Change mental health laws, Gazette?
From the Charleston Gazette’s lead editorial today: Here’s a yes-or-no question: Should psychotic Jared Loughner have been allowed to carry a loaded, hidden, semiautomatic pistol with a clip holding 30-plus bullets? The deranged young Arizona man paid $500 for a Glock 9 mm and two clips on Nov. 30. He passed a federal Background Check because he had no felony record and his glaring Mental Illness — visible to most who encountered him — hadn’t been certified by a j...

Could Arizona shooting have been prevented?
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON | Mon Jan 10, 2011 4:51pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old Arizona man charged with killing six people and injuring 12 others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, clearly scared more than a few people. Instructors at his college, as well as friends and neighbors, have said they expressed concerns about Loughner's behavior in the months before he opened fire at a gathering at a Tucson Shopping Mall on Sa...

DID SARAH PALIN MAKE HIM DO IT? (Maggie Gallagher)
Americans reach for a larger meaning in tragedy when possible. We hate the truth that the Attempted Murder of a congresswoman was likely a random act of madness. Because as frightening as some of the proposed explanations are, any explanation is better than no explanation; any explanation suggests a problem that could, potentially, be solved -- a future Murder that we can avoid, rather than a problem that has no solution because it is rooted in insanity and evil, both of which test our capacit...