Classmate Describes Shooter as 'Left-Wing Pothead'

A classmate of Jared Lee Loughner, charged in the Arizona rampage that severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killed six, and a dozen others outside a Tucson, Ariz., mall on Saturday, described the 22-year-old as a pot-smoking, political radical she met in high school who always was a bit of an outcast, the Phoenix New Times reports.

“As I knew him, he was left wing,” Caitie Parker tweeted after hearing of the violent attack that targeted and hospitalized Arizona Democrat Giffords in critical condition with a severe head wound. “He was a pot head, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.”

Parker wrote that she hadn't seen Loughner since 2007, when she and Loughner were in a sign language class together at Mountain View High School in Tucson.

Loughner once met Giffords at a political event in 2007, asked the congresswoman a question, said Parker, adding that he told her later that Giffords’ response “was stupid and unintelligent.” Loughner’s own Internet postings make bizarre references to the “illiterate” constituency in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, and his last message on his MySpace page simply read, “Goodbye friends.”