THE MAN identified by authorities as the gunman in Saturday’s shooting rampage appears to have left bizarre anti-government messages on the internet.
Jared Lee Loughner – or someone using his name – left a series of postings and homemade videos that laid out a fervent, though largely incoherent, set of political views.
On YouTube , Loughner's profile listed Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifestoand Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampfamong his favourite books.
In one video, titled America: Your last memory in a terrorist country!a figure in dark clothing and a smiley-face mask burns an American flag in the desert.
The soundtrack is a 2001 song by the band Drowning Pool, in which the singer repeatedly shrieks: “Let the bodies hit the floor!”
Another, posted on December 15th, begins with a line of text that reads, “My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!”
What follows on the screen are seemingly unconnected thoughts about currency and dreams, and the words “I can’t trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”
Another video attacks the police at Tucson’s Pima Community College, where he had been a student.
School officials said late on Saturday that Loughner attended the community college from 2005 until last autumn, when he withdrew after disciplinary problems.
The officials said that between February and September last year, campus police were called five times to deal with disruptions Loughner caused in classrooms and libraries.
On September 29th, the college said, it discovered that Loughner had posted a YouTube video he had made on the campus.
“In the video, he claims that the college is illegal according to the US constitution, and makes other claims,” the college said.
That day two police officers delivered a letter of suspension to Loughner at his parents’ house in a Tucson suburb.
On October 4th, during a meeting with Loughner, his parents and college administrators, he agreed to withdraw, the college said.
School officials told him he could return only if he obtained a clearance certifying that “in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the college does not present a danger to himself or others”.
Loughner’s troubled past also includes a narcotics arrest.
The videos do not mention Giffords by name. They do not describe any specific actions Loughner planned. And they do not seem to link Loughner explicitly to any mainstream political group or figures.
An eyewitness to the shooting said a “shabby-looking” young man in dark sweats appeared as Giffords met constituents on the sidewalk.
Loughner’s address is in a neighbourhood of ranch houses in a Tucson suburb lined with palm trees and cactus, just a few miles from the shopping centre where Giffords was shot. By midafternoon, police had cordoned off an area of several blocks as streams of reporters and other interested people rushed to the neighbourhood.
In high school, Loughner played saxophone in the jazz band and his clothes alternated between typical Arizona high school fashions – shorts and a T-shirt – and “Goth” clothes.
Some days, said friend Timothy Cheves, Loughner would wear long, dark pants with chains on them and T-shirts with the names of heavy-metal bands.
“He wasn’t very outgoing, but he was personable. If you sat down to talk to him, he would talk to you back,” Mr Cheves (22) said.
“But he’d get frustrated with people easily . . . He’d think that a lot of people were just idiots,” he added.
That included people in politics. “He was like a radical against both parties . . . From what I got, it seemed like he didn’t like anybody that was in power,” Mr Cheves said.
Loughner never talked of using violence, Mr Cheves added, but "there was something there that wasn't quite right". – ( Washington Postservice)