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Officials: Loughner Took Photos Of Himself With Gun

(4:30 p.m. ET. This post and its headline have been edited to reflect new information.)

Law enforcement officials tell NPR that the suspect in Saturday's Arizona shooting rampage went to a store that morning to get prints made of photographs he had taken of himself posing with a gun like that believed to have been used in the attack.

Those officials, who have knowledge of what's shown in photographs, say that Jared Loughner took them either the day before or night before the shooting.

Officials who have seen the photographs say that they were not as menacing as those taken by the Virginia Tech student who killed 32 people in 2007.

Loughner, the officials say, went to a Walgreens drug store to get them printed right after buying ammunition.

Six people were killed and another 13 wounded by gunshots in Saturday's attack.

Update at 4:30 p.m. ET:The officials say the photos show Loughner with a Glock 9 mm pistol -- the same type of weapon used in the attack. They say he was wearing a bright red g-string and put the pistol next to his naked bottom and near his crotch. Walgreens turned the photos over to authorities, the officials say.

It's now not clear whether Loughner is shown with more than one weapon.

We've edited our headline and the top of this post accordingly. Earlier, it said he "took photos of himself with guns." Now, we're using the singular "gun."

Update at 7:10 p.m. ET:The Pima County Sheriff's Department has released a timeline of how Loughner spent the night before the shooting and the day of the shooting. It says at 11:35 p.m. Friday, he dropped off a roll of 35mm film to be developed at Walgreens. He picked it up at 2:19 a.m. Here's the full timeline:

(Dina Temple-Raston is a correspondent on NPR's national security team.)

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Dina Temple-Raston is a correspondent on NPR's Investigations team focusing on breaking news stories and national security, technology and social justice.