A classmate of 22-year-old Jared Loughner — who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in the head, critically wounding her before killing six others over the weekend — told Mother Jones magazine in an extensive interview Monday of how he received a phone call from him just hours before his murderous rampage.
In the interview, Bryce Tierney who met Loughner in middle school and then attended high school with him, described the details on the phone call and his former friend’s previous interactions with Giffords, his drug use and keeping of a “dream” journal.
Tierney, 22, said he did not pick up Loughner’s call at 2am on the morning of the shooting because he was watching TV. He later checked his voicemail to find a message that said simply: “Hey man, it’s Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later.”
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When Tierney first heard about the shooting and that Giffords was one of the victims, he immediately suspected his ex-friend. “They hadn’t released the name, but I said, ‘Holy sh*t, I think it’s Jared that did it,'” Tierney told Mother Jones.
Tierney added that Loughner had held a grudge against Giffords for years and constantly told friends that she was a “fake.” He recounted to the magazine a story in which Loughner told him about attending a Giffords campaign event in 2007 during which she did not answer a question to his satisfaction.
“He told me that she opened up the floor for questions and he asked a question. The question was, ‘What is government if words have no meaning?’
“He said, ‘Can you believe it, they wouldn’t answer my question,’ and I told him, ‘Dude, no one’s going to answer that,'” Tierney told the magazine. “Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her.”
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Tierney said that Loughner would occasionally mention Giffords to his friends which is why he feared the worst when he heard about Saturday’s massacre.
“It wasn’t a day-in, day-out thing, but maybe once in a while, if Giffords did something that was ridiculous or passed some stupid law or did something stupid, he related that to people. But the thing I remember most is just that question. I don’t remember him stalking her or anything,” he said.
Tierney recalled that his friend wasn’t political in the sense that he belonged to a certain party, but did believe that government was “f*cking us over.”
“I saw his dream journal once,” Tierney added, saying that Loughner had become very interested in the concept of conscious dreaming. “That’s the golden piece of evidence. You want to know what goes on in Jared Loughner’s mind, there’s a dream journal that will tell you everything.”
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Tierney also told the magazine about Loughner’s drug use and that he remained positive that he was drug-free for a long period prior to the shooting. He recounted how Loughner had visited him in Phoenix in October 2008 and announced that he would no longer smoke marijuana or cigarettes any more.
According to Tierney, Loughner said, “I’m going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I’m going to start working out.” Tierney said he never saw his friend smoke marijuana again, noting that he was suspicious of media reports that indicated Loughner had been rejected by the army for failing a drug test.
“He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it,” Tierney told Mother Jones.
Fox News reported Monday that Loughner’s application to the US Army in December 2008 was rejected because in his application he had admitted to using marijuana numerous times.
Tierney said that it was after he quit drugs that Loughner began to act strangely.
“After he quit, he was just off the wall,” Tierney said.
Asked how he felt about missing his friend’s call just hours before the shooting, Tierney told the magazine: “I sort of wish I would have. I wonder what would have happened if I answered it.”