Suspect made several stops before shooting

TUCSON, Ariz. - In the hours before the assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Jared Loughner went to Walmart, was pulled over for running a red light and ran from his father after an angry confrontation.

Investigators are piecing together the timeline of Loughner's frenzied morning before the attack that killed six.

"What he did and the morning before the shooting, we're just trying to find all that out," said sheriff's Capt. Chris Nanos.

Nanos wouldn't say what Loughner bought during two trips to Walmart.

After the shopping trips, Loughner ran a red light but was let off with a warning, the Arizona Game and Fish Department said. The officer took Loughner's driver's license and vehicle registration information at 7:30 a.m. but found no outstanding warrants and didn't search the car, a late 1960s dark gray Chevy Nova.

About 8 a.m., Randy Loughner saw his son walk to one of the family's vehicles and take a black bag out of the trunk. "The father went out and said, 'What's that?' and he mumbled something and took off running," said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

Randy Loughner got in his truck and chased his son, but Jared ran into the desert.

At 10:11 a.m., police say Jared Loughner showed up at a Tucson grocery store in a taxi and shot 19 people, killing a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, among others and wounding more than a dozen.

Hours after the attack, sheriff's deputies swarmed the Loughners' home and removed what they describe as evidence Loughner was targeting Giffords. Among the handwritten notes was an obscenity-laden one that authorities believe included a reference to Giffords.

Investigators with the Pima County Sheriff's Department previously said they found handwritten notes in Loughner's safe reading "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords."

Nanos said all the writings were either in an envelope or on a form letter Giffords' office sent him in 2007 after he signed in at one of her "Congress on Your Corner" events - the same kind of gathering where the massacre occurred.

In one apparent reaction to the shooting, the FBI said background checks for handgun sales jumped in Arizona following the shootings, though the agency cautioned that the number of checks doesn't equate to the number of handguns sold.

Still, there were 263 background checks in Arizona on Monday, up from 164 for the same day a year ago - a 60 percent rise. Nationally, the increase was more modest: from 7,522 last year to 7,906 Monday, a 5 percent jump.

Loughner's parents, silent and holed up in their home since the attack, issued a statement Tuesday, expressing remorse over the shooting. "There are no words that can possibly express how we feel," Randy and Amy Loughner wrote in a statement handed to reporters waiting outside their house.

Four days after a bullet went through Giffords' head, she was making small movements on her own and tugging at her hospital gown, though she remained in critical condition.

"She was able to actually even feel her wounds herself," said Dr. Peter Rhee, trauma chief at the University of Arizona.