New documents from the school of Arizona gunman Jared Loughner illustrate a deeply disturbed young man who confused his teachers and classmates with his strange, often incomprehensible behavior.
The confidential documents, obtained by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, indicate that many at Pima Community College feared Loughner. One of his instructors even asked for a police guard to be stationed outside her classroom; another, when informing Loughner that would be receiving a 'B' in her class, was put off by his "very hostile" reaction.
In total, Loughner had five encounters with Pima campus police and he was suspended from the school in September. College officials told him that he could return to classes upon a mental health examination. He dropped out in October.
The report offers unsettling details of Loughner's odd physical tics. As one campus police officer writes of his experience responding to a September "classroom disturbance" involving Loughner:
I requested to speak with the student and then initiated a conversation. Mr. Loughner continued standing and I observed his head was tilted to the left with a confused look in the countenance of his face. His eyes focused down at his homework and he showed a sustained bobbing of the eyes while looking to his upper left side during questioning.
Several days later, another officer had a bizarre encounter with Loughner when he went to his house to deliver the student's suspension letter.
"While inside the garage I spoke with Jared who held a constant trance of staring as I narrated the past events that had transpired," the officer wrote in the report. "Even though we spent approximately one hours [sic] relaying the information and narration of Jared's actions that brought him to his current predicament, Jared left his silence and spoke out saying, 'I realize now that this is all a scam.'"
In January of last year, it was reported that Loughner suggested that dynamite should be attached to babies after a classmate read aloud a poem referencing abortion. Loughner explained his statement and thought process to Pima Advanced Program Manager Aubrey Conover: "He said that the class had been talking about abortion, which made him think of death, which made him think of suicide bombers, which made him think of babies as suicide bombers," Conover wrote.
Conover later met with Loughner and his mother to discuss the incident, and the college official relayed the importance of giving context with statements. In response, Loughner said "he would just not say anything in class."
While at Pima, Loughner took a diverse selection of classes, ranging from Bible studies to Pilates.
Read the documents in full here.