RA Student Shoots Congresswoman, Kills Fed Judge

[Albert Hidel]

Like most inept bureaucrats, Sheriff Dumpnik seeks to deflect the blame for his own incompetence. It seems the local gendarmes were well familiar with Loughner and his multiple death threats, stalking and unstable behavior, yet did nothing.

Not unlike the major midwestern university that has a professor on staff notorious for death threats, stalking and unstable behavior. Will they also be blaming talk radio when he goes postal?

Dumpnik ignored Loughner's obvious lunacy because Loughner's mom worked for the county. Better to endanger everyone in town than to enforce the law against one of our own. Police union goon and malingerer Bruce Tait wouldn't have done it any differently in Quincy.

The thoroughly disgraceful Sheriff Dupnik
January 11th, 2011

And now we know why he preferred to politicize the atrocity rather than do his job:

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. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability.

Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more.

This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.

I wouldn’t have believed Dupnik’s wholly unsubstantiated attack against his fellow citizens for the act of a madman could have gotten any more disgusting. But it just did.

If anyone else besides Loughner could truly be said to have blood on his hands, it just might be Dupnik. This man is a complete disgrace, a blot on his office, and unworthy of the public trust. He should be removed immediately, by whatever means the state of Arizona has in place to deal with such eventualities.