43
Officials reveal details about day of Ariz. shooting
Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
This undated photo released by the Pima County Sheriff's Office shows shooting suspect Jared Loughner.
Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz.
For Jared Loughner, the morning of the deadly shooting rampage was a blur of activity.
He hustled to Walmart twice. He ran a red light, with the officer letting him off with a warning. Back home, he grabbed a black bag from the trunk of a family car and fled into the desert on foot, his suspicious father giving chase.
Later, Loughner took a cab to a Safeway supermarket and began squeezing off round after round into the crowd.
The new details of the Walmart visits and the traffic stop emerged Wednesday, adding to the picture of the last frenetic hours the 22-year-old spent before the attack Saturday that gravely wounded his apparent target, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and killed six others.
“It sounds like he was pretty busy that morning,” Pima County sheriff’s Capt. Chris Nanos said.
As Giffords’ condition improved in an intensive-care unit Wednesday, all federal judges in the state recused themselves from the case to avoid any future questions about their impartiality, given that one of their colleagues, John Roll, was killed in the rampage.
The new details about the way Loughner spent the morning showed a harried young man dashing from store to store across this southern Arizona city in the hours before the shooting that shocked the country.
Nanos said Loughner made two trips to Walmart and made some purchases. He declined to specify whether Loughner purchased ammunition.
At some point, an officer with the Arizona Game and Fish Department saw Loughner run a red light around 7:30 a.m. and pulled over his 1960s dark-gray Chevy Nova, authorities said.
The stop was about 6 miles from the Safeway store, agency spokesman Tom Cadden said.
Wildlife officers usually don’t make traffic stops unless public safety is at risk, such as running a red light. The officer took his driver’s license and vehicle- registration information but found no outstanding warrants and let him go.
Loughner had a valid license and insurance, and the car was registered, agency spokesman Jim Paxon said. “He was warned and released because we had no probable cause to hold or do an extensive search.”
Sometime later, Loughner was back at his house on a block of low-slung homes.
Loughner removed a black bag from the trunk of the family car. His father, Randy, saw him, and asked him what he was doing, said Rick Kastigar, chief of the department’s investigations bureau.
Jared ran off into the nearby desert, only to emerge later from a cab at the Safeway supermarket where Giffords was having an event to listen to constituents’ concerns, authorities said.
Hours after the attack, deputy sheriffs swarmed his home and removed what they describe as evidence he was targeting Giffords, including handwritten notes in a safe that read “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and “Giffords.”
Among the notes was one with the words “Die, bitch,” which authorities believe was a reference to Giffords.