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Text By CHARLES FORELLE, ANN ZIMMERMAN And ALEXANDRA BERZON
TUCSON, Ariz.—In high school, Jared Lee Loughner was a scrawny kid with a bushy mop of curly hair under the hood of a gray sweatshirt, a saxophone player at football games who jammed with a friend's garage band.
More recently, in a series of videos he posted on YouTube, Mr. Loughner, now 22 years old, rages against the government and the constitution and refers to himself as a "terrorist."
Jared Lee Loughner, the man suspected of a shooting spree that killed a Federal Judge and critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, had left a trail of online videos in which he railed against the government. WSJ's Neil Hickey reports.
.Then, a few minutes after 10 a.m. Saturday morning, authorities say Mr. Loughner, armed with a semiautomatic pistol fitted with an extended magazine, shot 19 people, killing six, in the parking lot of a Safeway supermarket a few miles from his parents' home just north of this desert city.
Among the severely wounded was his apparent target, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, a 40-year-old Tucson Democrat in her third term.
Interviews with Mr. Loughner's friends and former classmates, as well as a review of his copious and bizarre online activity, describe a young man who fell into disturbing and erratic behavior.
In his freshman and sophomore years at Mountain View High School, Mr. Loughner flew under the radar. "All he did was play video games and play music," says Tommy Marriotti, a friend from those days.
Mr. Marriotti says much of his free time was devoted to the school band. He was not especially political, Mr. Marriotti said, though he expressed frustration with the Bush Administration.
Christina Lunderberg, 21, a bandmate of Mr Loughner's in high school, said he was a proficient saxophone player. "He was really good and talented and arrogant," Ms. Lunderberg said.
"No one really noticed him," other than his shock of bushy hair, said Josh Hatten, a classmate from elementary, middle school and high school.
By junior year, Mr. Loughner had changed. He used drugs, Mr. Marriotti said, and his grades slumped to the point that he talked about withdrawing from school. He didn't make it back for his senior year.
In 2007, the year he would have graduated high school, Mr. Loughner was arrested in Pima County and charged with drug possession and paraphernalia, according to court records. His case was "dismissed with prejudice."
He turned up at Pima Community College, where he took occasional classes. Once, Mr. Marriotti got an instant message from Mr. Loughner in which he said he was exercising and thinking of joining the military. He asked if Mr. Marriotti wanted to go for a jog. Mr. Marriotti said Mr. Lougher worked at an Eddie Bauer store in a Tucson mall and drove a late-60s Chevy Nova.
At Pima Mr. Loughner had five contacts with college police for library and classroom disruptions at two separate campuses, Pima Community College said in a statement. The college police also found a film made on campus and posted online saying the college was "illegal." In one video on YouTube, Mr. Loughner hints that he was a student at Pima and was ushered off the campus for protesting by the campus police.
At a news conference Saturday, the Pima County sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, minced few words: "There is reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue," he said.
The college confirmed that Mr. Loughner was a student there from 2005 through last October, when he was suspended "for violating the Student Code of Conduct," Rachelle Howell, a spokeswoman for the school, wrote in an email message. The college said Mr. Loughner voluntarily withdrew from the college in October.
By 8:30 p.m., Saturday, police and federal agents had cordoned off the road leading to a house on Soledad Ave. where neighbors said Mr. Loughner lived with his parents. Under floodlights, officials set up a table in the street to collect evidence and called a locksmith to open a safe in the house.
But much evidence of Mr. Loughner's behavior is online, in his videos. The short clips are well made but hard to comprehend. He doesn't appear in any of them and never cites any specific grievances.
In one video, Mr. Loughner says he is an Army recruit at Military Entrance Processing Center in Phoenix. The U.S. Army confirmed that Mr. Loughner tried to join the Army, but was rejected.
"He attempted to enlist in the Army but was rejected for service," an Army spokesman said. The spokesman said that in accordance with the Privacy Act he couldn't discuss why Mr. Loughner was rejected.
In recent months, he appeared to get more active with his video posts, a month ago uploading a video entitled "This Student At Pima Community College; An Unconstitutional Crime," in which he claims he is a victim of fraud for paying for an education he did not receive. In another video, he burns a flag and writes: "If there's no flag in the constitution then the flag in the film is unknown." He exhorts viewers to: "Burn your flag!"
In yet another video, he writes: "Current government officials are in power for their currency, but I'm informing you for your new currency!" He adds that his hope is for viewers to be "literate! The majority of people, who reside in District-8, are illiterate—hilarious. I don't control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure."
In a video called "How to: Mind Controller," he proclaims: "I'm able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller!"
In the last video, uploaded to the Website on Dec. 15 and titled "Final Thoughts," Mr. Loughner calls himself a terrorist—"a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon." The video's rambling prose appears on the screen, while music plays in the background. He doesn't appear in any of them.
"You don't have to accept the Federalist laws," one passage reads. "Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."
The video concludes: "The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar."
—John Emshwiller and Peter Sanders contributed to this article.
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