Posted on 01/10/2011 3:39:06 PM PST by Hojczyk
On Saturday evening Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told reporters that the Tucson Safeway shooter had made previous threats.
There are now accusations that Dupnik knew about the previous threats by leftwing pothead Jared Loughner and did nothing to protect the Tucson community from this homicidal young man. The Clolla Jumps:
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 as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.
Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability.
Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more.
This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.
Hat Tip Larwyn
As Ace says, “This is a claim. We’ll see if it’s true.”
Related… The Loughner family is now barring the FBI from entering their home. That’s strange.
Jared’s father works in Child Protective Services. I wonder if he ever tried to get his son the help he so obviously needed?
So what.
You heard me. So what. You can’t arrest somebody unless you have a real threat. Just because somebody is odd or a misfit or weird........you have to wait until they do something hello.
Judas Priest, these journalists are idiots, total nincompoops.
Why is nobody talking about what police protection they had at this meeting? Fact is, there was none. Who’s responsability was that?
Your wrong, Communicating a threat is a felony. If this is true it will come out in court.
Well, I guess he didn’t communicate a CREDIBLE threat then.
That is why the whole entire this looks bogus to me. From the supposed target to the other suspicious facets of the case. Gee, a federal judge was killed. How do they know kid hadn’t been put up to stalk the guy?
I believe making a death threat is considered a form of assault. Any Attorneys want to weigh in on that one?
Yeah. I guess he didn’t.
OCGA 16-11-37(a): "A person commits the offense of a terroristic threat when he or she threatens to commit any crime of violence . . . " OCGA 16-5-90: "A person commits the offense of stalking when he or she follows, places under surveillance, or contacts another person at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person. . . "
Either one is prosecutable here. Stalking does not require an actual death threat, only putting somebody in reasonable fear of bodily harm. Looks like we've got that here - this guy was obviously deranged and plenty of people have reported that they thought he was violent. Terroristic threats requires corroboration, but if he was making multiple death threats to various people at the school and elsewhere, just about any magistrate would issue a warrant because the threats corroborate each other.
If all these people called the sheriff's office and the sheriff's office declined to pursue a warrant, the sheriff may have a problem here. But it all depends on "what he knew and when he knew it."
Communicating a threat is communicating a threat, what is your point? Who determines credible, and why? Those may be more relevant questions as the so called sheriff has already stated the perp has made recent threats. I’m not sure if your all worked up over the fact that somebody can be locked up for communicating a threat or you think the sheriff is being slandered?
No it’s not a form of assault where I practice. It is however illegal to issue threats and the issuer will likely have a restraining order against them for up to one year if the person they threatened meets certain criteria and requests one, appears in court and is deemed credible.
Maybe it matters because the Sherriff could have prevented him from passing a background check to get a gun. Did the Sherriff take the necessary steps to prevent him from purchasing weapons? Could he have? Should he have? Smart reporters would be finding out.
My point is this—
idiots yell this in domestic cases all day and don’t get locked up—there wouldn’t be enough jails to hold them.
The threat has to be credible. I mean, in the law certain things have to be weighed, you have to have dates, times, places, intent, if a four year old communicates a threat to take the car and drive to Mexico that is different than if a 15 year old does so and the parents will react differently, right? Same with law enforcement—they have to constantly make these kinds of assessments and then have them approved by the court system—you can’t just go out and pick someone up and hold them, a lawyer will have you out in a NY second and if you overdo it you will get fired, kapish? Individuals have rights in this country. At this point anyway.
Hoe did this whack-job ever pass an FBI background check for his gun license?
I wonder how many conservatives the Sheriff was investigating? I’d like to know if he EVER looked at a liberal as a possible terrorist...
The point of this story is that the sheriff's office discouraged threat recipients from pursuing formal charges, telling them that the situation was under control. One would think that multiple unrelated threat recipients would have been a red flag to the sheriff's office, which could have applied, as I understand Arizona law, to have Loughner evaluated; involuntarily if necessary.
I get your point, that there wasn’t much the sheriff could have done. And since he may not have been aware of direct threats against Gifford, I guess (apparently) the threats were against a grab bag of other people, it didn’t occur to him that she needed protection.
But it is noteworthy that the sheriff knew the kid, and immediately came out guns ablazing against tea-party “vitriol” which of course had nothing to do with the case... and the sheriff knew it. He was making a preemptive attempt to muddy the water.
He couldn’t protect her against a crazy kid that he knew was making threats, he didn’t bother to have a deputy on hand to help with crowd control or what-have-you, but he could lash out against people who did not threaten her. Which is to say, us.
I think they're trying to block obnoxious media and the FBI has to deal with it. That doesn't seem strange to me.
HIs poor family my ass! They should be locked up and sued until their paupers!
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