Saturday 15 January 2011

In Loughner YouTube video, Tucson shooter calls college 'genocide school'

A four-minute video, which was posted on YouTube on Sept. 23 and later removed, has been released by the Pima Community College, subject of the video. It shows Tucson shooting susspect Jared Lee Loughner on campus. at night, commenting on the "genocide school," as he called it.
The video was released to The Los Angeles Times after the paper made a public records request. The video had been cited in campus police records as one of the reasons that college officials suspended Loughner.

On the same day the video was uploaded to YouTube, campus police officers were called to a biology classroom after Loughner began loud outbursts after told by an instructor that Loughner would only receive 1/2 credit if he turned in an assignment late. His strident comments caused the instructor to call campus police.

The video begins,
"All right, here's what we're doing. We're examining the torture of students. We're looking at students who've been tortured."
Later, he adds,
"I lost my freedom of speech to that guy and … this is what happens. And I'm in a terrible place. This is the school that I go to. This is my genocide school, where I'm going to be homeless because of this school. I haven't forgot the teacher that gave me the B for freedom of speech."
At the end of the video, he said,
"All the teachers that you have are being paid illegally and have illegal authority over the Constitution of the United States under the 1st Amendment. This is genocide in America. Thank you. This is Jared from Pima College."
At one point in the video, Loughner's face is reflected in a window. In the campus police report, an officer who saw the video said he "positively recognized the voice and the reflection in the window as student Jared Loughner. That officer was one of those who had removed Loughner from the biology class.

On Sept. 29, 2010, within hours of viewing the video, campus police officers hand-delivered a notice of immediate suspension to Loughner and his father, Randy, at their Tucson home.

You can view the video below or at the LA Times story linked above.