Islamofile 012111: More Examples From The Religion Of Peace (The Harry Potter Star Case)

She was punched, dragged by her hair and threatened with death by her big brother, but Harry Potter star Afshan Azad begged the court not to jail him.

Azad, 21, who stars as Harry's classmate Padma Patil in the J.K. Rowling movie franchise, had her original police statement read in the U.K.'s Manchester Crown Court, which revealed how her 28-year-old brother, Ashraf Azad, put her through a three-hour nightmare when he discovered she was dating a non-Muslim man.

So why did she ask the judge for leniency?

According to a letter Ashraf had written to the judge, the actress had "forgiven" her brother for the incident.

Back in May 2010, after he overheard her speaking to her Hindu boyfriend, Ashraf grabbed her hair, threw her across the room and punched her repeatedly. She suffered bruising and swelling and fled the house through her bedroom window.

But the judge had no sympathy for him, sentencing him to six months in prison after he pled guilty to beating his sister.

"This is a sentence that is designed to punish you for what you did and also to send out a clear message to others that domestic violence involving circumstances such as have arisen here cannot be tolerated," he explained as he handed down the sentence.

Afshan's father, Abdul Azad, was recently cleared for making death threats against her.(source)

Welfare Tab for Children of Illegal Immigrants Estimated at $600M in L.A. County

July 29: Los Angeles workers from 32 different unions joined local faith and community leaders at Dodger Stadium boarding 11 buses bound for Arizona to protest Arizona immigration law SB 1070.

Welfare benefits for the children of illegal immigrants cost America's largest county more than $600 million last year, according to a local official keeping tabs on the cost.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich released new statistics this week showing social spending for those families in his county rose to $53 million in November, putting the county government on track to spend more than $600 million on related costs for the year -- up from $570 million in 2009.

Antonovich arrived at the estimate by factoring in the cost of food stamps and welfare-style benefits through a state program known as CalWORKS. Combined with public safety costs and health care costs, the official claimed the "total cost for illegal immigrants to county taxpayers" was more than $1.6 billion in 2010.

"Not including the hundreds of millions of dollars for education," he said in a statement.

Antonovich's figures, though, center on costs generated by American-born children of illegal immigrants. Isabel Alegria, communications director at the California Immigrant Policy Center, said it's "unfair" to roll together costs associated with both illegal immigrants and U.S.-born citizens.

"Those children are U.S. citizens, children eligible for those programs," Alegria said.

She also questioned the authenticity of Antonovich's numbers regarding health care and public safety -- though for the welfare program statistics, Antonovich cited numbers from the county's Department of Public Social Services.

Antonovich acknowledges that the children whose benefits he's focusing on are U.S.-born. But he argues that the money is collected by the illegal immigrant parents, putting a painful burden on taxpayers, including those who are legal immigrants.

"The problem is illegal immigration. ... Their parents evidently immigrated here in order to get on social services," Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said. "We can no longer afford to be HMO to the world."

He said the state should cut back on these social benefits. According to the November statistics, that cost accounted for 22 percent of all food stamp and CalWORKS spending in the county.

Over the summer, the Federation for American Immigration Reform also looked at these kinds of costs nationwide to get an idea of the burden to local governments at a time when many are grappling with budget deficits.

The organization reported that the cost of illegal immigration stands at about $113 billion a year. Nearly half of that amount went toward education costs, according to the study. Costs were naturally higher in states with large illegal immigrant populations -- in California, the total annual cost was pegged at $21.8 billion.(source)

Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Charged With 8 Counts Of Murder

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor, his wife and eight other suspects are now under arrest following a grand jury investigation.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, faces eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman following a botched abortion at his office, along with the deaths of seven other babies who, prosecutors allege, were born alive following illegal late-term abortions and then were killed by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said District Attorney Seth Williams. “But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

Gosnell is facing charges of murder in the third degree for the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar. Mrs. Mongar died on November 20, 2009, when she was overdosed with anesthetics prescribed by Gosnell. He is also facing seven murder charges for the deaths of infants who were killed after being born viable and alive during the sixth, seventh, or eighth month of pregnancy. Gosnell is also facing numerous other charges.

Gosnell is suspected of killing hundreds of living babies over the course of his 30-year practice. However, he is not charged because the records do not exist.

DA Williams said Gosnell made approximately $1.8 million in one year alone performing the procedures.

Four of the suspects, some improperly licensed according to officials, also face multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing the newborns. All of the suspects are now behind bars after warrants were served overnight.

A search of Gosnell’s office, called the Women’s Medical Society, revealed that bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses were scattered throughout the building. Jars containing the severed feet of babies lined a shelf.

Gosnell, a family practioner, was never certified as an OB/GYN. He is accused of re-using unsanitary instruments and performing procedures in filthy rooms. Some of the rooms had litter boxes and animals present at the time of the operations.

Investigators also said Gosnell allowed unlicensed employees, including a 15-year-old high school student, to perform operations and administer anesthesia.

The grand jury investigation revealed that, for over two decades, government health and licensing officials had received repeated reports about Gosnell’s dangerous practices. However, no action was ever taken, even after the agencies learned that Mrs. Mongar had died during routine abortions under Gosnell’s care (see related story).

Dr. Gosnell, who has practiced in the West Philadelphia neighborhood for decades, is also the target of a federal grand jury investigation into illegally prescribing prescription drugs. Investigators say during a search of his home, they found $240,000 in cash.

Defense attorney William J. Brennan, who was out of town when the arrest happened this morning, said he had not yet talked to Dr. Gosnell, but says the charges are extremely serious and emotionally charged, and it is extremely important not to have a rush to judgement. Brennan says Gosnell is “cloaked with the presumption of innocence.”

Meanwhile, a civil suit has also been filed against Gosnell on behalf of the husband and children of the woman who died after an abortion. The suit seeks unspecified damages for the family of Karna Mongar, an immigrant from Bhutan who spent many years as a refugee. The suit claims she died after just five months here because of treatment by unlicenced personnel in a facility that lacked proper medical equipment.

The doctor, in past interviews with Eyewitness News, has proclaimed his innocence, predicting if charged, he will be acquitted.(source)

26 States Join Suit Against Obama Health Law

Jan. 18: Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks after accepting delivery of signed petitions demanding the repeal of 'ObamaCare' in Washington.

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Six more states joined a lawsuit in Florida against President Obama's health care overhaul on Tuesday, meaning more than half of the country is challenging the law.

The announcement was made as House members in Washington, led by Republicans, debated whether to repeal the law.

The six additional states joined Florida and 19 others in the legal action, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

"It sends a strong message that more than half of the states consider the health care law unconstitutional and are willing to fight it in court," she said in a statement.

The states claim the health care law is unconstitutional and violates people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties.

Government attorneys have said the states do not have standing to challenge the law and want the case dismissed.

Lawsuits have been filed elsewhere. A federal judge in Virginia ruled in December that the insurance-purchase mandate was unconstitutional, though two other federal judges have upheld the requirement. It's expected the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve the issue.

"It is important to note that two of the three courts that have reviewed this law on the merits have found it constitutional, and those decisions --as well as two others the government prevailed on -- are pending in courts of appeal. At the same time, trial courts in additional cases have dismissed numerous challenges on jurisdictional and other grounds that have not been appealed," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

Meanwhile, the White House dismissed an expected vote on repealing the law, saying the Republicans' push was not a serious legislative effort. Democrats have a majority in the Senate and they have said they will block repeal in that chamber.

In the Florida case, the states also argue the federal government is violating the Constitution by forcing a mandate on the states without providing money to pay for it. They say the new law gives the state's the impossible choice of accepting the new costs or forfeiting federal Medicaid funding.

Florida U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson could rule later this month whether he will grant a summary judgment in favor of the states or the Obama administration without a trial.

Florida's former Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum filed the lawsuit just minutes after President Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill into law in March. He chose a court in Pensacola, one of Florida's most conservative cities. The nation's most influential small business lobby, the National Federation of Independent Business, also joined the suit.

Joining the coalition in the Florida case were: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The other states that are suing are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.(source)

HOW DEMS OPERATE: Call The House GOP Nazi's

The newfound civility didn’t last long. Political rhetoric in Congress doesn’t get much nastier than the words of one House Democrat during the debate on repealing the health care law.

In an extraordinary outburst on the House floor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) invoked the Holocaust to attack Republicans on health care and compared rhetoric on the issue to the work of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing." And Congressman Cohen didn’t stop there.

“The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover," Cohen said.

Cohen made his comments late last night, but they have attracted no attention because his speech was made to a virtually empty House chamber with no reporters around to watch.(source)

OBAMACARE REPEALED: House Votes To Repeal On Strict Party Lines

House Republicans passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care plan Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.

The vote was 245 to 189, and unanimous GOP support gave the vote the same partisan feel of the March vote to pass the law, underscoring once again the hardened political lines of the health care debate. Only three Democrats backed the repeal, a smaller number than Republicans had once predicted.


The bill will head next to the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised to block it. If it did receive a vote, the repeal bill would be unlikely to draw support from even a majority of senators. Even so, House Republican leaders have challenged Reid to give the bill a vote since Democrats, who control the chamber, have little to fear.

Republicans rejected a procedural maneuver by the Democratic minority to make repeal ineffective unless a majority of the House and Senate withdraw from the federal health benefits program within 30 days after passage by each chamber.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the effort was “an attempt to derail an appeal of the Obamacare bill.”

House members flooded the floor throughout the day, delivering short but occasionally impassioned speeches that echoed their party’s talking points.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) called the law “a trillion-dollar tragedy.”

Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.) described it as “job-killing” and “socialistic.”

Rep. Kevin Duncan (R-Texas) said “health care is too important to get it wrong, and Obamacare got it wrong.”

But Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) took the debate to a new level late Tuesday night, suggesting to an empty House floor that Republican rhetoric around health care reform is akin to Nazi propaganda that fed anti-Semitism during World War II.


“They say it’s a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels,” Cohen said, referring to a Nazi propagandist. “You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That’s the same kind of thing.”

Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) agreed Wednesday afternoon that the health reform law creates jobs, but sparred on their merits.


Pallone said it’s a good thing that the new law creates jobs in the health care sector. He also said he was glad to hear Stearns say that the law will create jobs, a point, he says, Republicans won’t concede.

But Stearns fired back, saying the measure creates the wrong kind of jobs.

“Perhaps the gentleman of New Jersey didn’t listen to me when I just spoke,” Stearns said. “It’s creating 150 new government agencies. And these are all government jobs. When we talk about job creation here, that’s government jobs.”

The House will vote Thursday to instruct four committees to draft alternative health care proposals that reflect Republican priorities, such as reducing medical malpractice lawsuits, prohibiting the denial of coverage to people with preexisting conditions and barring the use of taxpayer money for abortions.

But House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Republicans won’t put a deadline on drafting an alternative to the Democrats’ health care reform law.

“I don’t know that we need artificial deadlines set up for the committees to act,” Boehner said. “We expect them to act in an efficient way, allowing all of their members on their committees to be heard, both Democrats and Republicans.”

Republicans introduced alternatives to the health reform legislation in the last Congress but have said they want to start those conversations anew in the several House committees with jurisdiction over health care.

Democrats tried to score some late political points amid the repeal vote by calling on members to give up their health benefits — the very kind of government-run health care Republicans rail against.

“It’s time for those who support repeal to give up the federal health benefits they currently enjoy as Members of Congress – the same benefits and protections they are voting to take away from millions of Americans,” a House Democratic leadership aide said. “Americans have a right to know that those who support repeal are willing to live without the same benefits they are denying their constituents.”(source)

Arizona Massacre Smear: Dems Want To Define What A "Threat" Means And Outlaw It As Speech

Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.

Brady told CNN that he wants federal lawmakers and officials to have the same protections against threat currently provided to the president. His call comes one day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot, along with 19 other people, at a public event in Tucson. A suspect is currently in custody.

"The president is a federal official," Brady told CNN in a telephone interview. "You can't do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge."

Among the six people killed was federal Judge John Roll.

While it is unknown at this time whether the shooting was politically motivated, that has not prevented a vigorous debate about whether heated political rhetoric seen during the healthcare reform debate and during the 2010 campaign is inciting violence.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) has had to fend off a fresh round of criticism for a map posted on one of her websites targeting 20 congressional districts that voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the 2008 presidential election but had Democratic members that voted in favor of healthcare reform.

Critics originally took Palin to task for the apparent use of the crosshairs of guns to identify the districts. The controversy re-ignited Saturday after the shooting, since Giffords's district was included on the map.

Brady singled out the map as the type of rhetoric he opposed.

"You can't put bull's-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official," he said.

However, a Palin spokeswoman denied Sunday that the image was intended to depict gun sights. Palin offered condolences to the Giffords family and other victims of the shooting on her Facebook page Saturday.

"The rhetoric is just ramped up so negatively, so high, that we have got to shut this down," Brady said.(source)

Arizona Massacre Smear: Doesn't It Look As If The Left Wanted This Tragedy To Happen?

One of the fiercest gun control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson, Ariz., Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday targeting the high-capacity ammunition clip the gunman used.

McCarthy ran for Congress after her husband was gunned down and her son seriously injured in a shooting in 1993 on a Long Island commuter train.


“My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a Sunday afternoon phone interview.

Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) said he’s preparing to introduce a similar bill in the Senate.

“The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly,” Lautenberg said in a statement. “These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market.“

Gun control activists said it was time to reform weapons laws in the United States almost immediately after a gunman killed six and injured 14 more, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Arizona on Saturday.

Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of the ammunition allegedly used by the 22-year-old assailant.

McCarthy said she plans to confer with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see “if we can work something through” in the coming week.

McCarthy’s spokesman confirmed that the legislation will target the high-capacity ammunition clips the Arizona gunman allegedly used in the shooting, but neither he nor the congresswoman offered any further details.

“Again, we need to look at how this is going to work to protect people, certainly citizens, and we have to look at what I can pass,” McCarthy said. “I don’t want to give the National Rifle Association — excuse the pun — the ammunition to come at me, either.”


Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told CNN that he also plans to take legislative action. He will introduce a bill that would make it a crime for anyone to use language or symbols that could be seen as threatening or violent against a federal official, including a member of Congress.

Another vocal supporter of gun control, Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, told POLITICO that he hopes “something good” can come from the Arizona tragedy — perhaps discussion of a new assault weapons ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.


Loughner legally purchased his weapon — a Glock 19 with an extended magazine — from an Arizona store. The same kind of extended magazine was illegal under the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

“The ability to buy a weapon that fires hundreds of bullets in less than a minute” is a problem, said Quigley. “He had an additional magazine capability. That’s not what a hunter needs. That’s not what someone needs to defend their home. That’s what you use to hunt people.”

After the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, in which a student with a history of psychological problems killed 33 and injured 25 others, lawmakers immediately started looking at gun control reforms at both the state and the federal level.

Then-Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine issued an executive order making it harder for people who have been committed to mental health treatment centers to buy a gun.

In 2008 President George W. Bush signed a law expanding the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which registered gun dealers use, to include more comprehensive reporting of mental health records. Under the current law, it is illegal for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution” to purchase a firearm, according to the FBI’s website.

However, Loughner did not fall into either of those categories, according to Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

“I’ve seen no evidence that he falls into those categories. It’s the same thing as this guy at Virginia Tech,” said Horwitz. “We can do a much better job checking people’s mental health background.”(source)

The Effeminate Crowd Weighs In A Day Late And A Dollar Short: Still Blaming Sarah Palin Over AZ Massacre

Despite President Obama's speech about healing, shared responsibility and shared pain, conservative pundit Sarah Palin is plastered, unflatteringly, along one San Francisco street (so far).

The posters -- found and publisehd by SFist.com -- espouse "Enrage them with fear until they feel justified in their violence."

Granted, Palin has brought even more spotlight on herself with a recent diatribe against "irresponsible journalists."

Maybe the president's message stressing the strength of our words and how we use them will stick ... like a poster to a wall. (source)

Five Days Of Dems/Media Claiming Shooter Was A Right-Winger Goes Wrong: He Was A Nihilistic Non-Believer

Police Say They Visited Tucson Suspect’s Home Even Before Rampage

Favorite books: The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf

TUCSON — The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday that left a congresswoman fighting for her life and six others dead, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday.

A spokesman, Jason Ogan, said the details of the calls were being reviewed by legal counsel and would be released as soon as the review was complete. He said he did not know what the calls were about — they could possibly have been minor, even trivial matters — or whether they involved Jared Loughner or another member of the household.

A friend of Mr. Loughner’s also said in an interview on Tuesday that Mr. Loughner, 22, was skilled with a gun — as early as high school — and had talked about a philosophy of fostering chaos.

The news of police involvement with the Loughners suggests that county sheriff’s deputies were at least familiar with the family, even if the reason for their visits was unclear as of Tuesday night.

The account by Mr. Loughner’s friend, a rare extended interview with someone close to Mr. Loughner in recent years, added some details to the emerging portrait of the suspect and his family.

“He was a nihilist and loves causing chaos, and that is probably why he did the shooting, along with the fact he was sick in the head,” said Zane Gutierrez, 21, who was living in a trailer outside Tucson and met Mr. Loughner sometimes to shoot at cans for target practice.

The Loughner family released a statement on Tuesday, its first since the attacks, expressing — in a six-line document handed to reporters outside their house — sorrow for the losses experienced by the victims and their families.

“It may not make any difference, but we wish that we could change the heinous events of Saturday,” the statement said. “There are no words that can possibly express how we feel. We wish that there were, so we could make you feel better.”

The new details from Mr. Gutierrez about Mr. Loughner — including his philosophy of anarchy and his expertise with a handgun, suggest that the earliest signs of behavior that may have ultimately led to the attacks started several years ago.

Mr. Gutierrez said his friend had become obsessed with the meaning of dreams and their importance. He talked about reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s book “The Will To Power” and embraced ideas about the corrosive, destructive effects of nihilism — a belief in nothing. And every day, his friend said, Mr. Loughner would get up and write in his dream journal, recording the world he experienced in sleep and its possible meanings.

“Jared felt nothing existed but his subconscious,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “The dream world was what was real to Jared, not the day-to-day of our lives.”

And that dream world, his friend said, could be downright strange.

“He would ask me constantly, ‘Do you see that blue tree over there?’ He would admit to seeing the sky as orange and the grass as blue,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Normal people don’t talk about that stuff.”

He added that Mr. Loughner “used the word hollow to describe how fake the real world was to him.”

As his behavior grew more puzzling to his friends, he was getting better with a pistol. Starting in high school, Mr. Loughner honed his marksmanship with a 9-millimeter pistol, the same caliber weapon used in the attack Saturday, until he became proficient at handling the weapon and firing it quickly.

“If he had a gun pointed at me, there is nothing I could do because he would make it count,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “He was quick.”

He also said that Mr. Loughner had increasing trouble interacting in social settings — during one party, for instance, Mr. Loughner retreated upstairs alone to a room and was found reading a dictionary.

Jared Loughner’s retreat — whether into the desert with his gun, or into the recesses of his dreams — coincided with a broader retreat by the Loughner family that left them increasingly isolated from their community, neighbors said.

His father, Randy, once more of a presence in their mostly working-class neighborhood in northwest Tucson as he went off to work as a carpet-layer and pool-deck installer, became a silent and often sullen presence.
One neighbor, George Gayan, who said he had known the family for 30 years, described a kind of a gradual “pulling back” by the family.

“People do this for different reasons,” said Mr. Gayan, 82. “I don’t know why.”

Some years ago, Randy Loughner built a wall to shield the side porch of the family’s home. Because of his often bellicose attitude, neighbors sometimes kept their distance.

Leslie Cooper owns the house next door, where her son and his family live. She recounted a time when her grandchildren would not chase after a ball that landed in the Loughners’ backyard.

“They had to buy a new one,” said Ms. Cooper, who was told of the incident by her son. “I’d tell my son, those are not normal people over there — there’s a reason why they stick to themselves,” she said, adding that she had warned him to steer clear of Randy Loughner.

“I said, be careful around that guy — don’t get him angry,” she added.

Other people in the neighborhood, though, said they saw glimpses of compassion in the Loughner family, and an ability to reach out to others, sometimes unexpectedly.

Richard Mckinley, 41, whose mother lives down the street from the Loughners, said his mother appreciated how Randy and Amy Loughner were among the first people to visit when her husband died two years ago.

“They were some of the first people to pay respects,” he said.

In contrast to the reputation of his father, Jared Loughner’s mother, Amy, is considered pleasant but reserved by those who know her.

She commuted about an hour each day to her job managing Agua Caliente Park, an area of spring-fed ponds surrounded by giant palm trees in the desert on the outskirts of Tucson. The impeccably maintained park was quiet Tuesday, but for the chirping of the dozens of species of birds that call it home and the occasional crunch of a birder’s hiking boots along the trails.

Donna DeHaan, a former board member of the nonprofit group that helps support the park, said Ms. Loughner was a reliable manager with a good background in environmental issues. Ms. DeHaan said she never spoke about her family but was always pleasant, if a tad quiet and shy.

Mr. Gutierrez said he sensed very little communication within the family when he was among them.

“Every time I met his parents they were kind of quiet and estranged,” he said. Jared Loughner did not complain about his parents, Mr. Gutierrez said, and seemed to simply accept the lack of interaction as a fact of life.

“Jared really did not talk to his parents or talk about them,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “I felt they were not really good reaching out and he was not good at reaching out to his parents.”

After his arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007, Mr. Loughner was ordered to attend a diversion program run by the county attorney’s office. The chief deputy county attorney, Amelia Craig Cramer, said the program is intended for first-time offenders who have no history of violence or serious mental illness.

Mr. Loughner was referred to an approved drug education program, and completed the required sessions in 30 days.

But the program is primarily educational, Ms. Cramer said, focused on “the dangers of drugs and the dangers of substance abuse,” rather than the kind of in-depth counseling that friends, including Mr. Gutierrez, strongly felt that Mr. Loughner needed.

“It got worse over time,” Mr. Gutierrez said. He said he stopped talking to Mr. Loughner last March, when their interactions grew increasingly unpredictable and troubling.

“He would call me at 2 a.m. and asked, ‘Are you hanging out in front of my house, stalking me?’ He started to get really paranoid, and said he did not want to see us anymore and did not trust us,” Mr. Gutierrez said, referring to himself and another friend. “He thought we were plotting to kill him or steal his car.”(source)