Arizona Congresswoman Shot At Public Event In Tucson

[Rutabaga]

Horrible, horrible, horrible...Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona has been shot during a public appearance at a mall in Tucson. Details are sketchy and conflicting, some sources say she's dead and others say she's alive and still in surgery. Others, including members of her staff, were wounded or killed.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/08/arizona.shooting/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

The gunman is in custody and no motive has been established just yet. But I will not be surprised if this was something I was afraid was going to happen sooner or later...not "just" a senseless murder, but a politically motivated attack.

This is absolutely nauseating. :cry

[Serena Laran]

Horrifying - I pray she pulls through.

[Rutabaga]

Rep. Giffords is alive, has survived surgery, was following commands, and is expected to pull through. But unfortunately a young child, perhaps about 9 years old, died at the hospital. Apparently a federal judge was killed as well.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

No motive. Guy appeared to just 'be crazy.' Allegedly obsessed with mind control, said there were at least two U.S. Constitutions, called himself a "dreamer" and a terrorist.

Oh yeah, he also allegedly said the government was trying to control everyone's mind through grammar.

[Jedi Master Carr]

The police suspect a second suspect involved in this terrorist act. Also according to his facebook page Mien Kampf is his favorite book. I am thinking he is a Neo-Nazi or something similar. I just hope she recovers, this is an awful tragedy, especially with the death of a nine year old girl with the other victims.

[Dasquian Belargic]

The BBC is reporting she is in critical condition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12145076

Additionally:


Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said a consuming atmosphere of political vitriol centred on Arizona may have been a factor in the attack.

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government," he said.

"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

This anger had spilled into violence before, with Ms Giffords' office being vandalised last March after she upset Arizona conservatives by supporting Mr Obama's healthcare reform bill.

Sheriff Dupnik said the congresswoman had been threatened by someone with a gun during her re-election campaign in November, adding that there had been other threats.

"We understand that at her headquarters right now, there is a suspicious package being investigated," he told reporters.

[Rutabaga]

I saw most of that press conference, I became a big fan of Sheriff Dupnik by the end of it.

Plus what the doctor said at the press conference about Rep. Giffords' wound is true...she's not out of the woods yet, and if she does survive this, her recovery is going to be long and difficult. There's no way, barring a miracle, that a bullet passes completely through someone's brain without leaving permanent damage behind.

The other detail that's come out that just breaks my heart is the 9-year-old girl who was killed. She went with a neighbor because she'd just been elected to her student council and was interested in government. The neighbor was apparently shot 4 times but survived. And guess which day this girl was born on? September 11, 2001. :\

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12147588


US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head by a gunman in Arizona, is responding well to treatment and can follow simple commands after surgery, doctors say.

They said it "was still very early" but they were "cautiously optimistic".

Ms Giffords, 40, was injured and six other people killed in a shooting at a public meeting at a Tucson supermarket.

A 22-year-old man has been arrested and police are hunting for a second man in connection with the shooting.

Surgeons at the Arizona University Medical Center said Ms Giffords was still in a critical condition but they were optimistic, especially since the bullet that hit her had not crossed both hemispheres of the brain.

They said their surgery had initially controlled the bleeding, then taken the pressure off the brain.

Transfusions had worked well, they said, and after the surgery Ms Giffords could respond to simple commands.

In their press conference, the surgeons said they had treated 11 other patients in the wake of the shooting, of which one - nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green - they were unable to resuscitate.

Five patients remain in serious condition and one has been discharged. Six surgeries were performed.

Dr Peter Rhee, medical director of the hospital's trauma and critical care unit, said: "I never thought I would experience something like this in my own back yard. It's a very trying period for all of us."

[Aurelias Kazaar]

Also according to his facebook page Mien Kampf is his favorite book. I am thinking he is a Neo-Nazi or something similar.

Guy also liked the Communist Manifesto.

I'm thinking the guy (and his alleged accomplice) were just nuts.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Young awkward white teenage boys wind up at one point or another reading both of those silly books. I wouldn't put all that much stock into somebody's select dubious readings unless they have a whole nazi section on their bookshelf or something.

[Dasquian Belargic]

Young awkward white teenage boys wind up at one point or another reading both of those silly books. I wouldn't put all that much stock into somebody's select dubious readings unless they have a whole nazi section on their bookshelf or something.

Right. Hell, I had to read the Communist Manifesto at school.

That reminds me of something that was aired here, following the last inexplicable shooting that occured in Europe:

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/PezlFNTGWv4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/PezlFNTGWv4?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[Jedi Master Carr]

Also according to his facebook page Mien Kampf is his favorite book. I am thinking he is a Neo-Nazi or something similar.

Guy also liked the Communist Manifesto.

I'm thinking the guy (and his alleged accomplice) were just nuts.

I think it is more than just nuts. I think he had a political motivation but that motivation is in his head. He might have just been anti-government. There might be a hate organization connection, especially since we have no idea who this other individual is. Delusional people are constantly manipulated by people who support hate (in this case the government), McVeigh comes to mind.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/arizona-shootings-gunman-refuses-to-talk-2180589.html


The gunman who carried out the Tucson massacre has refused to say anything to police since he was taken into custody.

Meanwhile lawyers want the attorney who defended Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski called to defend Jared Loughner, who makes his first court appearance tonight.

[...]

Ms Clarke is a former federal public defender who served on teams that defended McVeigh, a co-conspirator in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma that killed 168 people; Kaczynski, whose mail bombs killed three and injured 23 others over two decades; and Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons in 1994.

Discoveries at Loughner's home in southern Arizona, where he lived with his parents in a middle-class neighbourhood lined with desert landscaping and palm trees, have provided few answers to what motivated him.

Court papers filed with the charges said he had previous contact with Giffords. The documents said he had received a letter from the Democrat in which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007.

Comments from friends and former classmates bolstered by Loughner's own internet postings have painted a picture of a social outcast with almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia.

Police are looking at a possible connection between Loughner and American Renaissance an online group known for white supremacist, anti-immigrant rhetoric.