Jared Lee Loughner’s first contact with the Pima County Sheriff came on Sept. 23, 2004. But it wasn’t for anything he did. The assistant principal at Mountain View High School contacted police to report that Loughner reported being struck with a pin coming out of a pen in the cafeteria.
Loughner said he was sitting in the cafeteria talking to friends when a student identified as Anthony “Tony” Kurz had walked by him and poked him with something sharp. He started to “become pale, got dizzy, could not stand and had to be helped to a nurse’s office by another friend,” according to he report.
Asked by an officer what happened, Loughner said Kurz had an insert from an ink pen and through the top of the ink pen he had pushed a needle all the way through on one side and “in a flicking motion made it into a hammer that slapped into his arm and poked him.”
Loughner’s parents didn’t want him to press charges, but they did want Kurz tested to see if he had HIV or any other types of diseases.
Until Loughner’s apparent run in with a bully, his family’s only other contact with police had been fairly routine. About a decade before — on May 27, 1994 — police interviewed his father Randy Loughner in response to a 911 call reporting “reckless driving.” He told police he had just taken out his “mint” yellow Chevrolet Camaro for the first time in six months, and he was about to put it back into storage in his garage. Amy Loughner, Jared’s mother, contacted police on Dec. 21, 1996, when she noticed that her expiration tab was stolen from her license plate. Then on Oct. 11, 2002, Randy Loughner called police to report that the passenger side window of his 1966 Chevy truck had been smashed out during the night. The truck was parked in his front yard. Nothing was stolen, and Loughner had no suspect information.
The first sign of trouble came the next time Jared Loughner came in contact with the cops on May 12, 2006. A student who is almost certainly Loughner (but whose name is blacked out, likely due to his age at the time) was in the nurse’s office and was under the influence of some sort of intoxicant, most likely vodka. He was so intoxicated he was sent to the hospital.
Loughner told the officer that he drank 350 milliliters of vodka between 1:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. because his father had yelled at him. He told the nursing staff that he stole the alcohol from his father’s liquor cabinet. His parents arrived and were told he was under arrest for consuming alcohol.
Besides a false report of a fire that turned out to be a BBQ the Loughner family had at their home, the alleged shooter didn’t come into contact with police again until the evening hours of Sept. 9, 2007. That’s when Loughner and his friend Bryce Tierney were pulled over in a white van by a police officer after someone reported the vehicle as suspicious.
An officer who arrived at the scene to assist another cop said in the police report that Loughner told him he didn’t have any contraband on him. The officer asked if he could search him. Loughner said he had the right to say no, but the officer said he smelt marijuana coming off his person. He later told the officer that he had a marijuana pipe in his front left pocket. After the officer found that three inch pipe, he found another glass pipe in the center console.
Then on March 2008, Loughner’s father Randy reported that the back of his Chevy Nova had rocks thrown at it, breaking the back window.
On October 3, 2008, Jared Loughner walked into the Foothills District office to report that he was a victim of identify theft. He had apparently Googled his name and found a picture of himself, at age 16, with long curly hair, on the site Peekyou.com, a white-pages type website that aggregates publicly available information.
He said there was a link to a MySpace page with the name ‘Jared’ as the profile name, but the information listed a 29-year-old female. The profile had no friends and appeared never to be used. The email attached to the Myspace account was “myspacedotcomscrewupretard,” according to Loughner.
Loughner told the officer he had contacted PeekYou and they suggested he go to the police. He was hoping that Myspace could track the IP address of the person who created the account. Loughner suspected an old friend, identified as Alex in the police report, had created the fake accounts with his name and photo. As the police officer tried to get more information about Alex, he noted that Loughner was “slow to respond to my questions. He often hesitated as if he was trying to think of an explanation.”
Loughner’s biggest concern was that the fake accounts would impede his ability to get jobs. When police followed up a week later, Loughner told them he had called Alex. When he confronted him about the accounts, Alex denied creating them and said he had “no idea what he was talking about.”
On March 16, 2010, police responded to a 911 call at the Loughner house. Although it doesn’t specify who called, the report says a man called about a semi truck that was parked illegally. “He was upset that neighbors do not keep up their yard and park the wrong way on the street.” The semi was gone by the time the police arrived.
Once the shooting occurred and the media swarmed in, police responded to a call at 1:20 a.m. on Jan. 10. The caller reported a large truck parked in the roadway and said it had been driving around without lights on. Police quickly identified the truck to be from Good Morning America. The driver said he was setting up for a TV broadcast in the morning.
At 9:37 am on January 10, police responded to a harassment call at the Loughner house. Randy Loughner reported seeing several persons hanging over his back wall, trying to take pictures and come in the side gate. He saw a female in his yard, and yelled at her to leave, and threatened to set his dog on her. Police got a taped statement with Randy Loughner on the events of the day and asked him to identify the individuals who had come onto his property.
The records released by the sheriff’s office are embedded below.
