Legal Commentary

Is Jared Loughner the Shooter?

By Jim Lindgren

The shooter in the Arizona tragedy has been identified (whether accurately or not) as Jared Laughner. I think that the spelling of his name might instead be Jared Lee Loughner, who appears to have posted this Youtube video on December 15, 2010. As I post this, Loughner?s video has only 315 [310] hits.

The video references ?District 8,? but not Arizona. (Congresswoman Giffords represents Arizona?s 8th District.) On its face, the video seems somewhat paranoid, and the mentions of ?English grammar? may hint at an anti-immigration orientation.

At this early stage, one must be aware that this Jared Lee Loughner may be a different person than the ?Jared Laughner? who has been reported as being in custody. And given the internet, the video may even have been posted by someone using Loughner?s name.

UPDATE: The Huffington Post has reached the same conclusion and describes Loughner?s MySpace page.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on January 08, 2011 (boomark / email).