Did Sheriff Dupnik Drop the Ball on Loughner?

Pima County Sheriff Dupnik has been making a fool of himself charging on no evidence that heated rhetoric was behind the madman’s shooting rampage in Tucson.

But Cholla, a blogger with an impressive background in  the Navy and journalism, reports that sources inside the Department  who have seen original police reports  have told him that Dupnik’s own office dropped the ball on Loughner.

He says:

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 buy 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.

Until we see the reports this is just hearsay, but given the author’s background I think it merits consideration.Perhaps one of those crack tv reporters who let Dupnik wax on about his theories of the shooters’ motivation might ask about this report.