Read River’s Edge Redux: Jared Loughner’s Tucson friends talk to Alexander Zaitchik about their fucked, dead-end suburban lives … “We were trying to kill ourselves.”

What You Should Know / November 9, 2012

Read River’s Edge Redux: Jared Loughner’s Tucson friends talk to Alexander Zaitchik about their fucked, dead-end suburban lives … “We were trying to kill ourselves.”

exiledonline.com -- On my second night in Tucson, I was working in a ratty cafe called Shot in the Dark, an all-night worker cooperative around the corner from the Congress Hotel, where they cornered John Dillinger. I struck up a conversation with a scratched-up kid who was roughly Loughner’s age. Tucson is a small town, and I asked him if he had known the killer. He said no, but for a six-pack and a box of smokes he’d introduce me to his brother’s friend, who knew Loughner well. The next morning, in the blazing sun outside a taco joint, I met up with the brothers Taylor and Lance Sinclair (aged 19 and 22). They told me their story of having a ringside seat to Loughner’s crack-up.