Giffords Supporter Arrested for Death Threat to Tea Party Leader

Heroic Progressive Weirdo, or Pathetic Media Exploitee?

I'm just gonna suspend disbelief for a few minutes and pretend this story isn't too nutty to be true.

Twenty-four hours ago, Eric Fuller was a left wing martyr-hero still enjoying his fifteen minutes of media whoring fame. How quickly the narrative changes:

Two things are clear from Saturday's ABC News town hall meeting in Tucson. One: Tucsonans are eager to move forward and recover from last week's horrible shooting rampage. And two: that process is going to be slow and painful. That latter point was driven home by the arrest of a shooting victim, who threatened a speaker during the taping of the program.

ABC News Anchor Christiane Amanpour hosted the remarkable gathering of victims, heroes, witnesses and first responders. It was the first time most of them had been together since Jared Lee Loughner opened fire in a Safeway parking lot, killing 6, and wounding or injuring 14 others -- a rampage that happened one week earlier almost to the hour. ...

When Tucson Tea Party founder Trent Humphries rose to suggest that any conversation about gun control should be put off until after the funerals for all the victims, witnesses say Fuller became agitated. Two told KGUN9 News that finally, Fuller took a picture of Humphries, and said, "You're dead."

[Emphasis added]

Yes, this is the very same Eric Fuller nutjob who had been blaming Sarah Palin, John Boehner and Sharron Angle for the tragedy in Tuscon:

“It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller said in an interview with Democracy NOW.

“Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled — senseless hatred leading to murder, lunatic fringe anarchism, subscribed to by John Boehner, mainstream rebels with vengeance for all — even 9-year-old girls,” he added, referring to the death of Christina Taylor Green...

“I would put Sarah Palin in first place there. I think, really, she should be incarcerated for treason for advocating assassinating public officials,” Fuller said in an interview with Media Matters. “That map I saw that she published on the Internet had crosshairs on it and one of them was meant for Gabrielle Giffords.”

Yes, this is the same Eric Fuller who conspicuously supports Gabrielle Giffords:

Fuller, a 63-year-old veteran, had campaigned for Giffords during her reelection and was at the supermarket for her Congress on Your Corner event...

He added, “This woman is a spotless, purest, sweetest lamb in the world, gunned down … The only word I could think of is outraged.”

Weird. Do you think a restraining order could be in this guy's near future?

Shortly after Fuller's progressive everyman rants began hitting the airwaves, Fuller's delusional left wing comrades began making paranoid assumptions...

David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars:

"I wonder if Megyn Kelly or Bill O'Reilly will bring Fuller on Fox to browbeat him as they did Sheriff Dupnik for expressing the same view."

Eric Boehlert:

"Countdown to smearing wounded veteran from Tucson massacre begins… now."

Charles Johnson at LGF:

"Now watch as Andrew Breitbart, Jim Hoft, and the rest of the right wing blogosphere go into overdrive to smear Mr. Fuller."

Sweet, sweet Mr. Fuller... We'll protect you from the teabaggers!

Now Arizona's second most famous psycho has completely discredited himself:

Fuller was arrested on misdemeanor disorderly conduct and threat charges, Ogan said. While Fuller was being escorted out, deputies decided he needed a mental health evaluation and he was taken to a hospital, where he remained Saturday evening.

Tuscon, we have a problem!

Someone please tell me when this slo-mo train wreck is finally over. I can't keep watching.

UPDATE: Via W.C. Varones… Mental illness and alcoholism ― the not-so-subtle clues.

Tangentially-related news: Only months after losing an election with 3% vote, progressive universal health care crusader Cheryl Allen is being held on charges she made threats against judges and other officials on her Facebook account. For some reason, progressives are proud.

(Spin... it works both ways!)

Hat tips: Doug Powers and an anonymous prog idiot

Memeorandum threads

X-posted

Was the Arizona Shooting Sheriff Dupnik's Fault?

It's pretty clear at this point that Jared Loughner was the lone wolf shooter solely responsible for the carnage in Tuscon, Arizona on Saturday. But without a shred of evidence, liberals in this country try to blame the "usual suspects," including Sarah Palin, the tea partiers and conservative talk radio.

Let's cast the net wider.

On Saturday, we began asking pointed questions about Tucson Sheriff Clarence Dupnik:

A congresswoman got shot point-blank in the head in Pima County, Arizona today in broad daylight.

Maybe Pima County, Arizona would be a safe place to live if it had a sheriff who would enforce the law. Maybe the sheriff should spend less time trying to blame all the world's problems on talk radio and the Tea Party...

We should have seen this coming ― a complete meltdown of law and order in [a] county where the celebrity sheriff has very publicly flouted the law. How predictable...

Dupnik earned fifteen minutes of fame in June when he preemtively refused to enforce Arizona's new immigration law.

Now this anti-law enforcement sheriff is scrambling to explain why senseless violence has visited his left-leaning little utopia.

Dupnik has wagged his wretched little finger at Rush Limbaugh, the Chinese, guns, free speech, prejudice, bigotry (i.e. the Tea Party), Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin. But Dupnik admits he has no facts to back up his wild theories.

So why is Dupnik desperately pointing fingers instead of digging up facts?

One blogger presents a provocative possibility:

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda...

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation.

Moe Lane's analysis:

...if it comes out that the Sheriff’s office was aware of the threats, and did not act on them, then Clarence Dupnik needs to stop blaming the Right for the murder of six people and start blaming himself. Because Sheriff Dupnik is not in office to, say, fight partisan battles over state immigration policy: he’s in office to keep the peace. If he’s forgotten that, the voters will be happy to remind him.

Ace:

...if you've dropped the ball, badly, and that's led to six murders and multiple grave injuries, damnit, you'd better start soliciting political allies and dreaming up faraway scapegoats.

X-posted

Memeorandum thread

Excerpts from the Mark Levin Show in which Levin discusses the stunning ways in which Clarence Dupnik is fumbling the case involving the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford... Levin builds a compelling argument culminating in a call for Dupnik to step down:

MORE

Right Wing News: Pima County Sheriff Jeopardizes Prosecution of Loughner and Must Resign Now

Doug Ross: Did Loughner's parents "pull strings" in local government to protect a troubled child?

Patterico: Forgive me if it sounds like I am co-opting the “we don’t know, but let’s raise this partisan non-sequitur anyway” format, but I have some questions about our friend Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

Wizbang: Did Dupnik give the shooter a pass?

Hennessey: Sheriff Dupnik’s Culpability

Loughner Family Blocked FBI Agents From Home

Sheriff Who Refuses to Enforce The Law Blames AZ Bigotry For Tragic Violence in His County

A congresswoman got shot point-blank in the head in Pima County, Arizona today in broad daylight.

Maybe Pima County, Arizona would be a safe place to live if it had a sheriff who would enforce the law. Maybe the sheriff should spend less time trying to blame all the world's problems on talk radio and the Tea Party...

Via Gateway Pundit:

Pima County AZ Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blamed the “prejudice and vitriol” in Arizona for the shooting today.

For the record: The shooter and the victims were white.

He also wags a finger at talk radio commentators and sundry boogeymen, but here's the money quote:

But again I’d just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain people’s mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I believe has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

What's all this "Mecca" nonsense? Isn't Mecca a holy city for Islam? Is Jared Loughner a Muslim? What does this shooting have to do with Islam?

Apparently, the confused Democrat sheriff is taking an awkward swipe at the Tea Party and assorted ne'er-do-wells of their ilk. (Dupnik equates the Tea Party with bigotry.) Flashback to September:

“We didn’t have a tea party until we had a black president,” Dupnik said at a forum held at St. Francis Cabrini Roman Catholic church.

Asked how it came up in the discussion, he said, “I brought it up. I think I was talking about how bigotry is alive and well in America.”

He said aside from the timing of the movement’s birth, he’s seen bigoted messages at their rallies.

Don't forget, this is the ideologically-driven left-wing Sheriff who refuses to enforce the law in his county:

Pima County's top lawman says he has no intention of enforcing Arizona's controversial crackdown on illegal immigration. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik calls SB 1070 "racist," "disgusting," and "unnecessary."

We should have seen this coming ― a complete meltdown of law and order in the very county where the celebrity sheriff has very publicly flouted the law. How predictable:

X-posted at LCR
Discusssion
Oh, my: That which I didn't dare speculate publicly...
Did Sherrif Dupnik Pre-Emptively Blaming Sarah Palin Because He Knows True Blame Lay In His Office?

...if you've dropped the ball, badly, and that's led to six murders and multiple grave injuries, damnit, you'd better start soliciting political allies and dreaming up faraway scapegoats.

Legal Insurrection: Illness on display in Arizona
Instapundit: The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel

Kyl to sheriff: Keep your speculation to yourself… (via Hot Air)

Freedom's Lighthouse: Megyn Kelly Confronts Liberal Sheriff Dupnik On His Political Agenda – Video

Memeorandum thread: Megyn Kelly Takes On Sheriff Dupnik, The awesome stupidity of the calls to tamp down political speech, The Dishonorable Sheriff

Tragedy: AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords Shot

Photo of the Arizona killer?

Original caption: "...Jared Loughner, a volunteer, stands in the background during the Tucson Festival of Books."

Via RSM

According to CBS News, Jared Loughner, 22, reportedly used a semi-automatic pistol with an extra-large ammo clip in the attack that critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), killed at least five others — including a 9-year-old girl, a federal judge and one of Giffords’ aides — and wounded several more people.

17:34 Eastern

Mentally unstable... recent thoughts from Jared Lee Loughner:

• Brainwashing

• Mind controller

• Final thoughts

16:53 Eastern:

Photo of the killer?

16:52 Eastern:

AZ SHOOTER: JAROD LOUGHNER – He Likes Watching US Flags Burn & Favorite Book is Communist Manifesto...

10 Patients- 1 has died. Several – Five are in critical condition.

via Gateway Pundit

16:41 Eastern

A 22-year-old Tucson man is in custody in connection with the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 17 other people at a Tucson mall.

Jared Lee Loughner is being held after Giffords was shot Saturday at an event in Tucson.

14:47 Eastern:

LATE BREAKING: UMC officials confirm Rep. Giffords is in surgery. She has not been declared dead. (KOLD News 13)

14:45 Eastern:

Rep. Giffords still alive and in surgery, critical condition -- multiple spokespeople claim:http://huff.to/eSJMEi

14:13 Eastern:

NPR: Rep. Giffords (D-AZ), 6 others killed by gunman in Tucson

14:10 Eastern:

HuffingtonPost: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been killed, according to NPR

14:07 Eastern:

Drudge Report: Gunman 'in custody'...

14:05 Eastern:

DAILY MAIL: Giffords was apparently talking to a couple when the suspect ran up and shot her at point blank range. According to other witnesses, he was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody.

13:54 Eastern:

HuffingtonPost UPDATE: At least 12 people shot at Rep. Giffords event, one person in custody - sheriff's spokesman

13:51 Eastern:

SkyNewsBreak

US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot in the head during an event in her district.

Previous updates....

Via MSNBC:

"Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot, according to local reports; no word on her condition."

Updates to follow...

Via NPR:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot outside a grocery store in Tucson while holding a public event, Arizona Public Media reported Saturday.

The Democrat, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting a "Congress on Your Corner" event at the Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

At least five other people, including members of her staff, were hurt. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known.

Giffords was talking to a couple when the suspect ran up firing indiscriminately and then ran off, Michaels said. According to other witnesses, he was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody.

Giffords was first elected to represent Arizona's 8th District in 2006. The "Congress on Your Corner" events allow constituents to present their concerns directly to her.

(CNN) --

Several people were shot Saturday at a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona, a spokesman for the Pima County Sheriff's Department said.

The shooting occurred at a Safeway shortly after 10 a.m. MST, according to sheriff's spokesman Deputy Jason Ogan.

A couple of victims with gunshot wounds have arrived at Northwest Medical Center, according to spokesman Richard Parker.

"They've been coming in the last 10 minutes. I'm not sure of the severity of their injuries," he said. Ogan said the motive for the shooting is unclear.

"We're just trying to sort this out right now," he said.

X-posted

Memeorandum thread