Second person of interest sought in Arizona shooting

Update: This guy was just the cabbie.

Image, from a grocery store surveillance camera: "A Caucasian male, approximately 40-50 years old, dark hair, last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket," sought by the Pima County Sheriff's Dept. in Arizona in connection with yesterday's shooting. PDF Link.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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The Snowden Principle

Anonymous

His MKUltra handler?
- mkultra
  
  Hey, leave me out of this!
numike

I am just asking:
Is it possible that the shooter put all that ‘crazy dribble’ on the internet as little as a few months ago to appear crazy so as to cop an insanity plea?:
- Teller
  
  Think one of his last communiques said something to the effect: ‘To my friends, don’t be mad at what I did.’ A prosecuting attorney might argue the shooter knew what he was about to do and that writing ‘don’t be mad’ indicates he knew right from wrong – a fundamental stumbling block to a successful insanity plea.
- abstract_reg
  
  Has the insanity defence been used in a terrorism case yet?
- mausium
  
  “Is it possible that the shooter put all that ‘crazy dribble’ on the internet as little as a few months ago to appear crazy so as to cop an insanity plea?: ”
  
  Doesn’t matter, the “clever insanity plea” doesn’t work outside of movies.
Chris Spurgeon

Just another ping that you should update this post to reflect the fact that the guy in the photo has been identified as a cab driver who merely innocently brought the shooter to the scene and investigators now do not believe he played any role in the shootings.
Anonymous

It’s Roman Grant!!!
dblomqu1

Clearly this is the guy who showed Jared the Sarah Palin map. He lives in Area 51 and works for the CIA.
Vindemiatrix

That is so very clearly Killer Bob from Twin Peaks, moments before taking over the will and body of that deluded crazy young man with the obligatory “Lee” middle name. Fire has been walked with here. Bring in Special Agents Dale Cooper and Albert Rosenfield.
- user23
  
  That is so very clearly Killer Bob from Twin Peaks
  
  funny you should write that…that was what I was going to post.
  
  Anyone know why they have any reason to suspect him as having any link to the shooter?
  
  btw: that fellow’s (albeit blurry) appearance is so typical of the desert rats I’ve seen whenever I’ve been to certain parts of Arizona. I can almost smell the cheap beer on his breath and the tobacco on his clothing.
- SonOfSamSeaborn
  
  My first thought was David Carradine.
- genre slur
  
  Vinde stop it. My sides hurt, and you’re correct. Bring in Cooper!
dblomqu1

He looks older….perhaps he is Jared’s Parent? Not sure if that would be Parent #1 or Parent #2…..
mindysan33

FYI, regarding this guy, via Andrew Sullivan, via Fox (of all places):

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/a-far-right-connection.html

http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/latest-on-shooting-of-congresswoman-giffords-motivation-anti-semitic-and-she-was-the-target/#ixzz1AYxb5SFy

FWIW, the previous debates on this topic (the shooting overall, and attempting to pigeon hole the shooter as either left or right wing, and whether or not we should blame the Beck/Palin crowd), it might be good to keep in mind that attempting to pin down left or right can be difficult. After all, those designations were meant for the French revolutionary parliament. Also, some times the ideals and rhetoric of “fringe” or outside groups on all points of the spectrum can merge and become muddied. To take an example of from fringe to the mainstream, I think that to say that Ralph Nader and Ron Paul agree on some of our common problems is not too far off, yet one is “leftist/progressive”, the other is “rightist/libertarian”. I’ve heard folks who’d I’d or anyone really, would consider “left” agreeing with some ideology of the “far right” (including some of the ideas promoted by the sovereign citizen movement). Maybe a more helpful way of looking at political debate these days would be the level of legitimacy you think the government has and why you think that is so.

Regarding Palin (and Beck, too), I would very much like to think that she (and he) are not legitimate political forces, as if you peel back just about anything she says and compare it with what she does, it never truly adds up. I find her to be an opportunist. She has no real coherent political views, but is a demagogue who uses platitudes that happen to jive with some views of the religious right. There are many other conservatives who, while I might not agree with them, have actual and coherent politics that we can discuss. I find it crazy that anyone can defend her (or Beck) and think she is a legitimate politician rather than celebutician. I don’t think she is directly responsible for this, but I don’t think she helped the atmosphere by appealing to the fear centers of Americans who are increasingly frustrated and angry and want to lash out at something… I wish we could just ignore her and make her go far away… Sarah Palin (and Glenn Beck) and the amount of attention she gets makes me incredibly sad. Yet tons of people listen to them, and Ralph Nader is considered an outsider nutjob, despite the fact he has a coherent and sensible political argument to make about modern society and has contributed something positive to our world during the course of his life. What does THAT say about the current state of political affairs!

This has all been really sad, and it does not bode well for 2011. [steps down off soap box]
- Anonymous
  
  @8 (mindysan33):
  
  let’s talk again after the trial.
  
  .~.
  - mindysan33
    
    Sure. The guys motives might have nothing to do with the American political scene. He might be so delusional that he has no grasp of what is happening. You are correct to point out that I don’t know the guys motives, but neither do you at this point. We are equally in the dark. I wanted to point out more about the language being used to discuss this particular incident (and American politics overall), rather than the particulars of the incident.
    
    BUT — I think my larger point — about the left/right dichotomy not being useful descriptions of what is happening in the political landscape right now in general — still stands. Especially when you look at the fringe (“legitimate”, I guess we could say — Greens and Libertarians?) and radical (those who are not “legitimate”? ELF and the Freemen?) end of politics. What we think of as the radical left and right often have similarities regarding their politics. Am I wrong on that?
- genre slur
  
  Thanks for the links. Up here (Canada) the press treat Nader like a loon. Sad.
  - mindysan33
    
    Here too, he isn’t taken seriously. Funny thing is, most people, when they listen to the guy for a few minutes, actually listen to what he has to say, not some condensed pundit’s take on Nader, and I mean across the political spectrum, generally find themselves in agreement with him. My generally conservative dad voted for him in 2004 because he was sick of Bush but couldn’t bring himself to vote for Kerry, after I told him to give him a listen.
technosean

There is no such legal term as a “Person of Interest”.

That’s what the police say when they don’t have probable cause… or sometimes even reasonable suspicion (both legal terms), and they don’t want to be sued by saying someone is a suspect and besmirching their reputation. It’s a joke, because the person is actually a suspect in the police’s eyes.
Anonymous

Check out the comments on that gretawire piece linked by mindysan. Whoah.
- mindysan33
  
  Do you see that one guy, who tries to blame it on “influences”, regarding wearing black, including a trenchcoat! WTF!
chgoliz

My immediate reaction, on learning they were looking for a 50-ish man, was also to think of his dad or other male relative. Time will tell.
Tatsuma

Just found this over on another site. Very, very strange if true. Rep. Giffords has a youtube channel with 2 subscriptions. One was to classitup10…her alleged shooter!! See for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/user/giffords2
- Anonymous
  
  Tatsuma, I think those followers are people who are following the Giffords channel, not people the channel was following. (And, y’know, it makes sense that her assassin was stalking her, rather than she was stalking her assassin.)
  - Yamara
    
    Tatsuma, I think those followers are people who are following the Giffords channel, not people the channel was following. (And, y’know, it makes sense that her assassin was stalking her, rather than she was stalking her assassin.)
    
    MMMMmmmmm–no, Tatsuma is right. Giffords’ channel is subscribed to Classitup10 and RepIkeSkelton.
    
    W.
    
    T.
    
    F??
    - insert
      
      That is *incredibly* strange. The channel is official: A post on Giffords’ House website has a link to the channel.
      
      Although, news articles say that Loughner attended previous Giffords events and there was some correspondence between Loughner and Giffords’ office. So there was some contact, at least, but it’s especially strange since Giffords wasn’t subscribing to very many channels.
  - Anonymous
    
    Look again, Anon. She’s following him. Her list of followers has over 100 people. The list of people she’s following only has two people on it – one of them is classitup10
  - duop
    
    Tatsuma, thanks for bringing this info to the bb community. Upon a cursory examination of Representative Giffords youtube account there seem to be a couple inconsistencies that need some clarification, imho. Her listed age is 27 years old where her wiki states she was born in 1970. That raised my eyebrow initially. Also on the left hand side of Rep. Giffords youtube page, it states that her last login was one day ago. Around 3 hours ago when I first read the comments section on this thread, and saw the link Tsatsuma provided, the last login time stated 20 hours. It seems to me that there must be another person in control of the account or it has been hacked. There may be very little possibility that Representative Giffords has been on the youtubes in the last day to check her comments or any business like that….
    - sgnp
      
      The idea that a Representative’s official YouTube channel would be maintained by someone else makes sense to me.
      
      The most mundane explanation is that whoever that person is visited Loughner’s videos when they became publicized and subscribed so they would be alerted if anything new was posted.
technosean

UNICORN PLEASE!!!

All these recent BoingBoing articles on shooting and death…

HELP!!! XENI WHERE ARE YOU???
- Jack
  
  You know what is my personal â€œUnicorn Chaserâ€ for this insanity? The fact that as horrific as this stuff has been, it all happening right around the time of the new divisive Republican majority was puffing itâ€™s chest and doing ridiculous grand-standing like reading the constitution.
  
  They deserve their self-important violent static to blowback on them.
  
  Come 2012 elections, nobody should forget this horror in any way/shape/form.
  
  These deaths deserve to be politicized to respect the lives lost.
  - mdh
    
    It should be remembered that Rep. Giffords took part in that “ridiculous grandstanding”.
    
    She read the First Amendment.
    
    And Beck lambasted the lot of them for it the day before: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201101070006
  - Anonymous
    
    The fact that as horrific as this stuff has been, it all happening right around the time of the new divisive Republican majority was puffing itâ€™s chest and doing ridiculous grand-standing like reading the constitution.
    
    Wait, Giffords was also reading the constitution.
Anonymous

authorities ruled out any involvement by a man described earlier as a person of interest
Anonymous

This is the intel op who gave the trigger word to our obligatory, three names, quiet loner killer. And maybe his primary target wasn’t Gifford but the judge? Things are never as they seem in the media.
Cor

This guy has been cleared by the police.
- desiredusername
  
  http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/live-blog-latest-developments-on-arizona-shooting/?hp#sheriff-second-suspect-was-cab-driver-not-involved
Ceronomus

They were talking to him last I heard. From the way it was presented, he wasn’t involved.
Anonymous

According to NYT Caucus blog (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/live-blog-latest-developments-on-arizona-shooting/?hp#sheriff-second-suspect-was-cab-driver-not-involved) he was the taxi driver who drove the shooter to the grocery store. Prolly a good time for an update on this post….
mdh

It is strange that she would “follow” (does not denote actually watching any video’s) one of her constituents who (maybe?) let her know he had a channel that she might want to check out in a venue she was dabbling in using as a communication tool?

I mean, Occams Razor and all that.
- insert
  
  Eh. It’s mostly strange because she (or more likely, her press aide) only followed two people — one of whom would later try to assassinate her.
  
  But I agree that it’s probably just a coincidence, though a strange and surprising one.
Anonymous

no worries. even “professional” news sites are guilty of mistakes. and poor writing / unintentionally hilarious writing…

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-jared-lee-loughner-profile,0,3468158.story

the kicker:

Investigators say they served a search warrant at Loughner’s home, and found evidence suggesting he planned ahead.

The evidence included an envelope from a safe with messages such as “I planned ahead”…
Onecos

He has stepped forward. He was the cab driver and entered the store with to shooter to get change for the cab ride.
- joeposts
  
  This case gets weirder and weirder. Like why didn’t Loughner just give him a big tip? He was either going to jail or going to die. Don’t need $11 either way…
Anonymous

From NYT

Early Sunday, the authorities released a photograph taken from surveillance video of a possible accomplice in the shooting. But the man later contacted sheriffâ€™s deputies, who determined that he was a taxi driver who dropped the suspect at the mall where the shooting took place and then entered the supermarket with him when he did not have sufficient change.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10giffords.html?hp
Rider

It’s an old guy wearing a windbreaker with his hands in his pockets. He must be up to no good.
Anonymous

Randall Flagg.
- Rindan
  
  Randall Flagg.
  
  I don’t give a damn what that stupid made for TV version says. In my mind as that book, Randall Flagg is and always will be Christopher Walken.
vinegartom

Kind of surprised no one’s mentioned that he looks a bit like this guy: Mr. Futterman from Gremlins
Anonymous

“He was the cab driver and entered the store with to shooter to get change for the cab ride.”

So presumably the government will beat him to death just like with Dilawar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilawar_(torture_victim)
Anonymous

I agree. Poor guy was just the taxi driver.

From the New York Times:

“Early Sunday, the authorities released a photograph taken from the surveillance video of a possible accomplice in the shooting. But the man later contacted sheriffâ€™s deputies, who determined that he was a taxi driver who had taken the suspect to the mall where the shooting took place and then entered the supermarket with him when he did not have change for the $14 fare.”