Reports detail Jared Loughner's behavior before Tucson shooting

TUCSON — In hindsight, the red flags seem to be everywhere.

By the time Jared Lee Loughner shot and killed six people, wounding 13 — including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — his parents had already taken away his shotgun, tested him for drugs and forbade him from using the family vehicle after dusk. Months earlier, officials at his community college had refused to allow him to return to campus until he passed a mental evaluation. Hours before he went on a shooting rampage, a Wal-Mart clerk had declined to sell him ammunition.

These details emerged Wednesday when authorities released nearly 3,000 pages of investigative reports, painting a picture of a man who had become unhinged and the people who had tried to intervene, worried he was a danger to himself and others.

The disclosure of the case documents — previously kept under seal — comes after Loughner was sentenced in November to life in prison without parole. The 24-year-old pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges in the rampage at a constituent event Giffords, a Democrat, was hosting at a grocery store parking lot in north Tucson in 2011.

In an interview with law enforcement officials, Loughner's mother, Amy Loughner, said her son had been acting strangely for about a year, often talking or laughing to himself, and was angry with the government, though she did not say why.

Loughner's father, Randy Loughner, described his son as "too smart for his own good," saying that he was "set off" after he was dismissed from Pima Community College because of a video. The documents did not describe the video, but at one point Loughner made a video in which he raged against the college. College officials told Loughner not to return to campus until he had sought medical attention, his father said.

Loughner's dismissal also followed an incident in which he made comments about abortion that his fellow classmates and others found so disturbing that the campus police were called.

That's when his parents took away the shotgun.

Amy Loughner, referring to school officials, said, "They recommended … if there's any firearms in the house that we should, you know, put them away."

"Did they say he was a danger to himself? Or is he a danger to others?" a detective asked.

"I think they said both," Amy Loughner responded.

She also described her son's disturbing behavior: "Sometimes you'd hear him in his room, like having conversations. And sometimes he would look like he was having a conversation with someone right there, be talking to someone. I don't know how to explain it. I don't."

Before the killings, she said, her son hadn't had a job for a year. He'd been fired from his job at a store in the Tucson Mall, and his parents supported him with small amounts of cash at Christmas and occasionally a few dollars for gas so he could search for another job.

Randy Loughner said his son "was just never the same" after losing his job.

"Yeah he ... can't find … couldn't find a job," Randy Loughner said, according to the documents. "He didn't feel like he should have been fired from the job either.… Just nothing, nothing worked, seemed to go right for him."

The documents had been sealed by a judge to ensure Loughner's right to a fair trial. Last month, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns approved the release of the files now that the case is closed. Various news organizations had sought access to the documents.

In one interview, Amy Loughner said her son smoked pot but had given it up; he'd tried cocaine but hadn't had a drink in the five months before the shooting.

The detective asked her whether she believed her son's statements about not using drugs.

"I believe him," she said. "We drug-tested him.… My concern was like meth or something because his behavior was odd."

His father and others described Loughner as an outcast and loner.

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