Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/08/AR2011010802422.html?hpid=topnews
video
Ariz. Rep. Giffords in serious condition after Tucson shooting; eight others injured
January 8, 2011

Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and critically wounded Saturday morning while hosting an event outside a Tucson grocery store, according to local news reports, a tragic turn of events after an unusually heated campaign season.

C.J. Karamargin, Giffords' spokesman, told the Washington Post on Saturday afternoon that Giffords was in surgery.

Giffords, who in November narrowly won reelection to a third term, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" event when a gunman ran up and began shooting her and others in her entourage with a Glock handgun, according to law enforcement sources.

According to a local news report, Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson, but was reported to have been responsive immediately after the shooting. A hospital spokesperson told CNN that nine people had arrived and that all were in critical or serious condition, including a child.

Last March, Giffords was one of ten House Democrats who were the subject of harassment over their support for the national health care overhaul. At the time, the front door of Giffords' Tucson office had been shattered in an early morning incident.

Giffords had been a top target by Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, but managed to win a tough re-election battle against a tea party candidate.

House Speaker John Boehner (R.Ohio) put out a statement saying: "I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords... An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."

The up-and-coming lawmaker, known as a moderate Democrat who paid close attention to constituent concerns, had been singled out by Sarah Palin's SarahPac as one of the 20 Democrats on the ballot in November who represented states that supported Sen. John McCain for president in 2008. "It's time to take a stand," Palin's fundraising appeal said of Giffords and the other Democrats, who had all supported the health-care bill.

NPR reported that Giffords was talking to a couple outside of a local Safeway when the suspect ran up and fired indiscriminately from about four feet away. The man, described by witnesses as in his late teens or early 20s, was tackled when he tried to flee the scene. Police confirmed that a young man was in custody in connection with the shooting.
The "Congress on Your Corner" program was popular among Democrats elected in recent years from swing districts, as a way of keeping in regular contact with local concerns. The event was the first of Giffords' third term; she took the oath of office for the 112th Congress on Tuesday.

Arizona has been a political hotbed in recent months, especially after the state approved last April restrictive immigration laws that became a conservative rallying cry.

Giffords is a member of the House Blue Dog Democrat coalition, a bloc of moderate and conservative Democrats whose ranks were ravaged by losses in November. Her husband is astronaut Mark E. Kelly.

Her 8th congressional district borders Mexico, and Giffords was judicious in her response to the Arizona immigration law, describing it as a "clear calling that the federal government needs to do a better job."

This was not the first time someone brought a gun to a Giffords event. A protester protester in August brought a gun to Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event in Douglas. Police were alerted after he dropped the firearm.

"When you represent a district that includes the home of the O.K. Corral and Tombstone, 'the Town Too Tough to Die,' nothing's a surprise out in Cochise County," Giffords, D-Ariz., said Tuesday in an interview with The Arizona Republic Editorial Board.

The man in question shouted "some pretty disparaging comments," Giffords said, but "at no point did I ever feel in danger and at no point did I ever feel there was a problem."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/capitol-police-advise-members-staff-to-take-precautions/69140/
Capitol Police Advise Members, Staff to Take Precautions
January 8, 2011

Following the tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and staff members in Tucson, Arizona today, the U.S. Capitol Police are advising members of Congress to take safety precautions.

The Capitol police also announced they are involved in the investigation into the shooting. A statement from the Capitol Police was emailed to all House staff:

   From: US Capitol Police [uscp90176@alert.house.gov]
    Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 3:16 PM
    To: All House Staff
    Subject: Message from the U.S. Capitol Police

    Federal, state and local law enforcement authorities in Arizona are investigating a shooting in Tucson, Arizona in which Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot. Multiple others were shot as well. Congresswoman Giffords has been transported to a local medical facility with serious injuries. The suspect is in custody. No further details on the motive or other victims are available at this time.

    The U.S. Capitol Police are directly involved in this investigation. As more information is developed, it will be provided. In the interim, all Members and staff are advised to take reasonable and prudent precautions regarding their personal security.

The Capitol Police met with lawmakers in March of 2010, following a wave of threats and intimidation against lawmakers, one of the most alarming instances of which involved Giffords's Tuscon office. On the night of the health care vote, Giffords's office window was smashed.

After other offices received threats, Democratic Capitol Police met with lawmakers at the request of Democratic leaders, to advise them on safety.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/rep-giffords-critical-condition-shot-head-public-event/
Rep. Giffords in Critical Condition After Being Shot in the Head at Public Event
January8, 2011

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in critical condition after being shot in the head at close range  Saturday morning while holding a public event, Fox News has confirmed.

Initial reports said that Giffords had died but a hospital spokesman and three House sources told Fox News that she remained alive in a nearby hospital where she was undergoing surgery.

At least 19 people were shot at Gifford's "Your Corner" event held outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, including three members of the Democratic congresswoman's staff in Arizona. Five have died and nine are in critical condition at the University of Arizona Medical Center.

A suspect is in custody. Authorities are looking for a possible second suspect.

According to the law enforcement official, the suspect began shouting something before shooting wildly with an automatic weapon. Shots then rang out from the crowd --  a security agent or someone else fired at the suspect who survived.

Giffords, 40, has held multiple "Your Corner" events over the past four years, an aide told Fox News, adding that she had held three previous events at this venue before.

In November, Giffords was re-elected to her third term as representative of Arizona's 8th Congressional District, winning a tight race against a Tea Party candidate. She was first elected to Congress 2006 when she rode a wave of Democratic victories.

She was a member of the Arizona House and Senate before coming to Washington. She is married to astronaut Mark Kelly.

President Obama issued a statement, calling the shooting "an unspeakable tragedy."

"We do not yet have all the answers," he said. "What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society. I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers."

House Speaker John Boehner condemned the attack on Giffords.

"I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff," he said in a statement. "An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70724820110108
Six dead, 12 wounded in Arizona shooting - report
January 8, 2011

(Reuters) - Six people have died and twelve others are wounded after a shooting on Saturday at a meeting hosted by Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, CNN reported, citing a police official.

NBC News, citing law enforcement officials, said federal judge John Moll was among those killed.

Giffords, a 40-year-old Democrat, was shot in the head and was in surgery, a hospital official said earlier.

(Reporting by Americas Desk; Writing by Paul Simao, Editing by Bill Trott)

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/cnn-democratic-congresswoman-killed-at-a-rally-outside-a-tucson-store/1
Democratic congresswoman survives Arizona shooting; a federal judge reported killed
January 8, 2011

Update at 4:16 p.m. Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survived a close shot to the head during a political gathering outside a grocery in Tucson, Arizona, according to Peter Rhee, director of the trauma care at University Medical Center.

Rhee says Giffords was shot "through and through" the head but that he is "very optimistic" about her recovery.

At least two people died in the attack, a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.

He says the hospital received 10 patients from the shooting that one young person had died and that five are in critical condition.

The Pima Count sheriff's office says one suspect is in custoday.The Pima county sheriff's office says 18 people were injured.

NBC reports at that a Federal Judge John Roll was among those killed, according to "several law enforcement sources."

The AP quotes U.S. Marshal for Arizona David Gonzles as confirming that Roll died in the attack.

The Pima County sheriff's office tells reporters that a 22-year-old suspect is in custody. Deputy Rich Kastigar says authorities also recovered a pistol with an extended magazine. He says 18 people were injured, but would not discuss the condition of any of the victims. The deputy also said that the suspect had had only minor run-ins with the law.

NBC reports the suspect as Jared Laughner of Arizona.

The AP quotes congressional sources as saying one of Giffords aides died in the attack.

People gather at the scene of a shooting involving Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., on Jan. 8, 2011 in Tucson, Ariz.
CAPTION
By Dean Knuth/Arizona Daily Star, AP
MSNBC also quotes a producer for the NBC affiliate in Tucson, KVOA, as saying that Giffords was talking as she was being rushed into surgery.

The shooting occcurred outside a Safeway grocery in Tucson where the congresswoman was holding a political meet-and-greet with constituents.

CNN earlier reported that Giffords was killed in the shooting

"She is currently in surgery for a shot to the head," Slaten tells CNN.

Slaten says there will be a news briefing at around 2:40 p.m. ET.

(snip)

Jared Lee Loughner

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/JaredLoughner.jpg)

His youtube channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/a/f/0/3L1lsLU-kUw (http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/a/f/0/3L1lsLU-kUw)

His Myspace - shut down now

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq-p-6WMVMAJ:www.myspace.com/fallenasleep+http://www.myspace.com/fallenasleep&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Cq-p-6WMVMAJ:www.myspace.com/fallenasleep+http://www.myspace.com/fallenasleep&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

This freak has 5 videos on youtube.  He's simply a nutcase.

A dangerous nutcase.   ::MonkeyNoNo::

 ::MonkeyEek::

OT
Aww, we were talking about a "nutcase", not you, NUT.   ::MonkeyKiss::

http://www.ajc.com/news/supect-in-arizona-shooting-799005.html
Supect in Arizona shooting posted video ramblings on the web
January 8, 2011
A 22-year-old suspect in a shooting at a Tucson, Arizona, shopping center has several videos posted on the Internet in which he writes about mind control and the “new currency.”
Two of those videos are rambling writings. In another he appears to be seated on the floor of a bedroom and speaks softly with a Scottish accent.

A 9-year-old boy and federal Judge John Roll and four others were killed. Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head and was in critical condition Saturday afternoon. Eleven others were also wounded in the shooting outside a grocery store.

According to the Associated Press, police had a suspect in custody: Jared Loughner.

One 51-second YouTube video opens with electronic music and a graphic with the words “If I’m the mind controller then I control the belief and religion.”

In the next frame, Loughner writes “If you’re editing of every belief and religion reaches the final century then the writer for every belief and religion is you…. You control every – thought, action and lifestyle – for the person or people as the mind controller. I’m able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller.”

Another video, posted Dec. 15, opens with “My final thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!” The music is much different.

One of the topics in the three-minute, 47-second video is what would happen if each letter of the alphabet were replaced by another and 8-year-olds were taught the new words.

Then Loughner shifts his discussion to the “new currency.” The writings are nonsensical.

“Every human who’s mentally capable is always able to be treasurer of their new currency. If you create one new currency then you’re able to create a second new currency. If you’re able to create second new currency then you’re able to create third new currency. You create one new currency. Thus, you’re able to create a third currency.”

That video also was posted Dec. 15.

On Nov. 30, Laughner apparently posted a rant about the education he is getting at Pima Community College. He writes that the classes and grades offered there are unconstitutional. "If the police remove you from the educational facility for talking then removing you from the educational facility for talking is unconstitutional in the United States."

Loughner's first one was posted Feb. 25, 2010, on an account shared with a friend.

He said his father was born in America but his mother was from Scotland.

“We’re not exactly the most famous dual bloggers on the Internet but perhaps one day we might be,” Loughner said. “You’ll find we’re both quite humorous and serious. Whatever the situation demands. I don’t really have a schedule yet but we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see how it goes. Catch you later, Internet.”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/08/shooting-suspects-apparent-youtube-video/
Authorities Suspect Gunman in Arizona Rampage Posted Pre-Shooting Video Online
January 8, 2011

Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old man who sources identify to Fox News as the gunman in custody in the deadly shooting rampage Saturday in Arizona, is suspected of posting a series of YouTube videos that show a focus on literacy and currency -- as well as his distrust in the government.

"Hello, my name is Jared Lee Loughner," one of the videos says, in words appearing on the screen. "This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream - sadly."

The video, posted Dec. 15, later turns more political.

"The majority of citizens in the united states of America have never read the united states of America's constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws," the video's titles say. "In conclusion, reading the second United States constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver! No! I won't trust in god!"

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was among the people critically wounded in the shooting at a public event in Tucson, and several people were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old boy.

Officials have said little publicly about the suspect in custody, but law enforcement sources who asked to remain anonymous identify him as Loughner.

Loughner's page on YouTube lists Tucson as his hometown. He also said he attended Northwest Aztec College and Pima County Community College. And in one of the videos, he says he is a military recruit.

He lists reading under interests, as well as "conscience dreams," and among his favorite books are "Mein Kampf," the "Communist Manifesto," "Animal Farm" and "Brave New World."

In a comment posted on MySpace three months ago in connection with a video about Pima Community College, Loughner wrote: "Hello, I know you’re illiterate! This is the greatest protest for exposure into a wrongful act. The school is breaking the constitution. If you watch the video then you’ll understand. The teachers are taking advantage of you in the first and Fifth Amendment. The United States Constitution, which is the law, can be broken at this school. Thank you and goodnight! Jared"

His last writing on his MySpace page was "Goodbye friends."

http://www.kvoa.com/news/sheriff-s-surround-home-of-believed-suspect/

Sheriff's surround home of believed suspect

Posted: Jan 8, 2011 4:24 PM

TUCSON - Pima County Sheriff's deputies have surrounded what is believed to be the home of the suspect in this morning's tragic shooting that has claimed the lives of 6 people, including a federal judge and a young girl, and left Gabrielle Giffords and at least a dozen others injured.

AP News sources reported earlier today that Jared Loughner, 22, was the suspected shooter. News 4 located his home, and found a number of law enforcement officials outside.

Neighbors in the area say that they have seen the believed suspect, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, around the neighborhood a few times, but he didn't associate with anyone, or talk with anyone.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40980334/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
Profile of Jared Loughner: ‘I'm a sleepwalker’
Rambling, philosophical YouTube videos from man with same name as gunman identified by law enforcement sources
January 8, 2011

"I'm a sleepwalker," Jared Lee Loughner proclaimed in an Internet video weeks before the shooting of a federal judge, congresswoman and others.

Federal sources identified a Jared L. Loughner, 22, of Tucson, as the suspected gunman in the shooting Saturday at a meet-the-constituents meeting in Tucson.

Public records in Arizona showed a Jared L. Loughner, born in September 1988, which would make him 22 years old. He was living on Soledad Avenue in Tucson, about a five-mile drive from the Safeway store where the shooting occurred, in the Foothill Malls area.

Records from a public records service showed no criminal charges against Jared Loughner, though such records can be incomplete.

Federal law enforcement officials were poring over copies of a MySpace page that belonged to Jared Loughner and over Youtube video published to the Internet weeks ago under an account "Classitup10" and identifying the author as Jared Lee Loughner.

The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by U.S. officials, included a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message published hours before the shooting. It also exhorted his friends to "Please don't be mad at me."

Screenshots that appear to come from that page show a handgun on top of a U.S. history textbook.
Pima County Sheriff's officials said the gunman used a pistol to carry out the shooting spree. U.S. officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release it publicly. Sources also gave NBC News the same name and age.

In a rambling, philosophical YouTube video titled " My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner," the author muses:

“All conscience dreaming at this moment is asleep. Jared Loughner is conscience dreaming at this moment. Thus, Jared Loughner is asleep."

He describes a loss of property rights by Americans, and ends with, "Terrorist: If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon. ... If you call me a terrorist, then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist. Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.”

In one of several Youtube videos, the author described inventing a new U.S. currency and complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in Giffords' congressional district in Arizona.

"I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the People," the author wrote. "Nearly all the people, who don't know this accurate information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn't have happen (sic)."

A young woman in Arizona, Catie Parker, claimed on her Twitter feed that she went to high school and college with the gunman, and was in a band with him. She described his politics in the past as "left wing, quite liberal, & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." She also described him as having a lot of friends "until he got alcohol poisoning in '06" and dropped out of school. "Mainly loner very philosophical."

Parker described the gunman meeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords previously: "He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was 'stupid & unintelligent.'"

YouTube video transcripts
In one of the videos, entitled "Hello," the author writes in words on a black and white screen:

Hello
Hello, my name is Jared Lee Loughner.

This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream - sadly.

Firstly, the current government officials are in power for their currency, but I'm informing you for your new currency! If you're treasurer of a new money system, then you're responsible for the distributing of a new currency. We now know - the treasurer for a new money system, is the distributor of the new currency. As a result, the people approve a new money system which is promising new information that's accurate, and we truly believe in a new currency. Above all, you have your new currency, listener?

Secondly, my hope - is for you to be literate! If you're literate in English grammar, then you comprehend English grammar. The majority of people, who reside in District-8, are illiterate - hilarious. I don't control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure.

Thirdly, I know who's listening: Government Officials, and the People. Nearly all the people, who don't know this accurate information of a new currency, aren't aware of mind control and brainwash methods. If I have my civil rights, then this message wouldn't have happen.

In conclusion, my ambition - is for informing literate dreamers about a new currency; in a few days, you know I'm conscience dreaming! Thank you!

And in a second video, called "My Final Thoughts," he questions the literacy of his listeners:

My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner



Most people, who read this text, forget in the next 2 second!

The population of dreamers in the United States of America is less than 5%!

(next slide = jumble of numbers outlining "the previous year of B.C.E.")

If B.C.E. years are unable to start then A.D.E. years are unable to begin.

B.C.E. years are unable to start.
(snip)  More in article

His myspace before it was shut down:

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/Jared-Lee-Loughner_myspace.png)

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/jared_page.png)

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/Jared_Loughner.jpg)

I'm guessing his high school pic:

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/JaredLoughnerHighSchool.jpg)

Thanks, Klaas. 

This is the photo they have been using on TV (CNBC).  You have more here than they have, right now.

I've been watching this all evening and it truly makes me ill.  I just want to know what is going on in this world.  So many senseless murders, adults and children over one or two sickos outlandish, and sick minds, and who can create so much carnage.  I know some may or may not agree with me, but I am beginning to believe this is what Revelations in the Bible speaks of during the close of end of times, among many other things that are going on in the world, like so many natural disasters, etc....  I just can't make any sense out of all of this. 

I pray for the families of all those still alive and those who have died.  Please bring them all peace in this tragedy!  I pray Gabby makes a full recovery, which only a miracle can happen by you! And the little 9 year old who went and was killed because she just got involved in student council at school and a niebhor who thought she might be interested or learn something from it.  What a lesson!  ::MonkeyMad::

From one of his youtube videos.  So he was recruited into the Marines.  Did he actually make it into the Marines, did he serve in Afghanistan like what was originally reported?

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/MEP1.jpg)

Hi Dihannah,

Yes it's horrible

According to the reports on CNN he did not get into the marines - I think they said he failed his psych testing but I am not positive on that part.

On Fox News and the Sheriff release, they said due to privacy practices they can't reveal why he was denied, but they even admitted it will probably leaked out eventually.  But psych test would not surprise me!

They just said on Foxnews that he was denied entrance in 2007 but won't at this time say why.  He did have a conviction for drugs or something in his teens. 

http://www.kold.com/global/story.asp?s=13809127

Suspicious device prompts evacuation at Rep. Giffords' office
Posted: Jan 08, 2011 4:53 PM PST Updated: Jan 08, 2011 4:56 PM PST

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Tucson Police officers have evacuated the area surrounding Rep. Gabrielle Gifford's office after finding a suspicious device near the building, police said.

Officers assigned to provide security following Saturday's shooting of Giffords found the device shortly after 5 p.m., Tucson Police spokesman Lt. Fabian Pacheco said.

The offices are located in the 1600 Block of North Swan, near Pima.

A crowd of about 30 to 40 people, including media and those holding a vigil for the deadly attack, were moved across the street as a precaution, KOLD News reporter Barbara Grijalva said.

Tucson Police have called their bomb specialists to the area to investigate the device.

Stay with KOLD News on your mobile device, TV and your computer for further updates.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/08/sheriff-suspicious-package-giffords-hq/
Sheriff: Suspicious package at Giffords HQ
January 8, 2011

TUCSON, Ariz. –  A loud noise has rattled more than 100 people attending a candle light vigil outside the headquarters of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, where authorities were investigating a suspicious package Saturday.

Police department spokesman Lt. Fabian Pacheco said an officer checking Giffords' office in Tucson had found "a real strange" device that he said resembled a coffee can and had writing on it. Pacheco would not disclose what the writing said.

A bomb squad had been working to render the device safe before the loud noise was heard. Authorities did not say if the noise was caused by contents within the package or from authorities' efforts to destroy the device and render it safe.

Pacheco said there was no threat to public safety.

The package was found after a shooting rampage that left Giffords wounded and killed six others.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities were investigating a suspicious package sent to the headquarters of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, hours after she was wounded in a shooting rampage in Tucson.

Police department spokesman Lt. Fabian Pacheco said an officer checking Giffords' office in Tucson found "a real strange" device that he described as a medal container resembling a coffee can and with writing on it. Pacheco would not disclose what the writing said.

He said authorities warned people at a candle light vigil across the street from Gifford's office that they may hear loud noise as a bomb squad worked to render the device safe, but they should not be alarmed.

Pacheco said there was no threat to public safety.

"It's been a horrible and tragic day," he said. "The prudent thing for us is to take everything seriously."

Giffords was holding a forum for constituents earlier Saturday when the violence erupted, killing six and wounding several others, including Giffords.

At the candle light vigil held, more than 100 people huddled in the cold, held candles and read signs that said "Peace," and "Just Pray."

"She's just a great person," said Margaret Robles, 64, a retired teacher's aid who knew Gifford's grandparents. "She didn't care what color, what race, if you could read or if you were a scholar. She treated you as an equal."

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik gave few other details about the possible package.

The report I watched said he was turned down.  There was a mention of his refusal of the bible, so they may have been guessing at the reason based on this text.  I think they knew he was a loose cannon.  jmo

http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/Rep-Gabrielle-Giffords-others-shot-at-Tucson-event-113135139.html

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critical after mass shooting, 'person of interest' on the loose

by Catherine Holland

Fox 11

Posted on January 8, 2011 at 5:13 PM

Updated today at 8:15 PM

TUCSON, Ariz. -- U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is in critical condition after a shooting at a "Congress on Your Corner" event at a Safeway store in northwest Tucson Saturday morning. One suspect was taken into custody, but authorities said they are still looking for a "person of interest."

The gunman opened fire, shooting 19 people, shortly after the 10 a.m. event got under way.

Six people were killed, including Federal Judge John McCarthy Roll and a 9-year-old girl named Christina Taylor Green. Gabe Zimmerman, the director of community outreach in the congresswoman's Tuscon office, was also shot to death.

Among the wounded are two members of Giffords staff, Pam Simon and Ron Barber.

The names of the other victims have not been released.

Although there were early reports that Giffords had been killed, that was not the case. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson where she underwent surgery for a head wound. She is now in critical condition in the intensive care unit and has been responding to doctors' commands.

In a news conference Saturday evening, former Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona described Giffords' wound as "devastating," but would not elaborate. He said doctors at UMC were cautiously optimistic.

Dr. Peter Rhee, the chief of trauma, critical care and emergency surgery at UMC, said he was "very optimistic" about Giffords' recovery. "I'm about as optimistic as you can get in this situation," he said. Rhee described Giffords' wound as "through and through" and said the next 24 hours would be critical.

Rhee said UMC had 10 patients from the shooting. At least five of them, including Giffords, remain in critical condition. In addition, Green, the 9-year-old girl, died at the hospital.

The suspect, who has been identified as Jared Lee Loughner, is in custody, but there is no information yet on a motive for the shooting. Some witnesses said Loughner, described as a clean-shaven white male, was yelling names as he opened fire.

Although authorities have not officially released any details about Loughner, 22, sources tell 3TV the Tucson resident had limited military experience and is quite active on the Internet, even launching his own YouTube channel back in October. He also had a MySpace page, but it was taken down shortly after he was identified as the suspect.

Loughner, who reportedly has a troubled past that includes a criminal history and possible mental issues, has invoked his right against self-incrimination and is not talking to investigators.

According to officials close to the investigation, Loughner told authorities he acted alone, but Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said investigators do not believe that. He said investigators believe Loughner arrived at the event with another person. Dupnik would not divulge any other details except to say that authorities are actively pursuing another individual as a "person of interest."
(snipped)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/08/arizona-suspect-likely-facing-death-penalty-fatally-shooting-federal-judge/
Arizona Suspect Likely Facing Death Penalty for Fatally Shooting Federal Judge
January 8, 2011

A shooting rampage in Arizona Saturday killed U.S. District Judge John M. Roll, and while his death initially was overshadowed by news of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' injuries, Roll's murderer is sure to face the harshest justice provided by law.

Roll was killed while just passing through an outdoor town-hall style event called "Congress on your Corner" held by Giffords in a Safeway parking lot in Tucson.

"My understanding is he just went to the Safeway to do some shopping ... and he just stopped to chat and say hi, " C.J. Karamargin, Giffords communications director, told Fox News.

Police say suspect Jared Lee Loughner, who is in custody, killed six people, including Roll, a 9-year-old child and Giffords' aide Gabe Zimmerman, and wounded 13 others, including Giffords who was shot in the head as she met with her constituents at the start of the meeting.

Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said authorities believe Giffords was targeted by the shooter. But Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano said the killer is likely facing the death penalty even if he didn't target Roll or others in particular during the shooting

Napolitano said it would be a federal crime of capital murder eligible for the death sentence if the killer's motive was to prevent Roll from carrying out his judicial role.

"If on the other hand he was just killed because he happened to get in the way, then it's not a federal crime, then Arizona law would take place. He still may be exposed to the death penalty but it would be under Arizona jurisdiction and not federal."

Napolitano said a federal prosecution is likely to occur first.

"The federal government almost always takes precedence when there is a joint jurisdiction," he said, explaining that there is joint jurisdiction in the investigation because two of the targets -- Giffords and Roll -- were federal officers. Homicide is typically a state crime.

Roll was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush where he built a record that analysts say was "middle of the road."

Napolitano said that Roll wasn't a controversial jurist, didn't issue bizarre rulings that were outside the mainstream and wasn't known for interfering with the works of the state government.

"He was just a methodical, hard-working, well-respected, well-liked conservative jurist whose death is a shock to all of us in the legal community," he said.

Former Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., told Fox News that Roll was "energetic, enthusiastic, he was very thoughtful, he would always thank me for anything I was able to do for the judges." He had been working to get a federal courthouse built or located in Yuma, Ariz., to deal with the vast number of immigration cases that arise from that sector of the border.

"He made no big waves," Shadegg said. "There has been no weird rulings from him. Just a serious, conservative judge who served the people for the entirety of his adult life in one way or another."

Roll's murder drew a rare public statement from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

"We in the judiciary have suffered the terrible loss of one of our own," he said. "Chief Judge John Roll was a wise jurist who selflessly served Arizona and the nation with great distinction, as attorney and judge, for more than 35 years."

"I express my deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his children, as well as the other victims and their families," Roberts continued. "Chief Judge Roll's death is a somber reminder of the importance of the rule of law and the sacrifices of those who work to secure it."

President Obama mentioned Roll during a brief statement in which he said he "offered the full resources of the federal government" to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

"Obviously our hearts go out to the family members of those who have been slain," he said. "We are going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to get through this."

A statement issued on the U.S. District Court in Arizona said Roll was appointed to the federal bench in 1991, and served as chief judge of the district since 2006.

"The devoted husband, father of three, grandfather of five, and friend to all who knew him, will be greatly missed by his family and community. He was a warm, compassionate judge and inspirational leader in what is one of the busiest districts in the country. His death will leave a significant void in the District of Arizona and the entire federal judiciary, and we are all deeply saddened," the statement reads.

According to the Arizona Republic, Roll and his wife were given a protection detail from the U.S. Marshal's Service for about a month in 2009 after he presided over a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher.

Roll and his family received hundreds of threatening phone calls after the judge ruled the case could go forward. But Roll didn't like the detail.

"It was unnerving and invasive," he told the newspaper. "By nature it has to be."

After four key men had been identified as threat makers, the newspaper reported, Roll followed the advice of the Marshals Service not to press charges.

I am so disappointed.

They released the name of the 9 year old girl who was killed.

I firmly believe they should have withheld her name until the children in her school were in school and had access to counselors to help them through this.

But, no. They released her identity tonight. I guess because she was born on Sept. 11, 2001.

Again, I really think nobody thought this through for the children.

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/reports-arizona-rep-gabrielle.html

Updated: 11:20 p.m.

The nine-year old girl who was killed in Saturday's shooting has been identified as Christina Taylor Greene.

Greene was born on Sep. 11, 2001, according to Tucson TV station KVOA.

The Arizona Republic reports that Greene was taken to Saturday's event by a neighbor who thought she would enjoy it.

Greene had been elected to her school's student council and had loved swimming, horseback riding, basketball and ballet, according to local reports.

(http://i380.photobucket.com/albums/oo242/Brandi-Monkey/little-red-scissors.gif)

Brandi - I'm hoping her parents approved prior to releasing her name.

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13809398

Sheriff: Not convinced accused gunman acted alone in Giffords shooting
Posted: Jan 08, 2011 6:16 PM PST Updated: Jan 08, 2011 9:07 PM PST
Click image to enlarge

By Christopher Francis - email

TUCSON (KOLD) - Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik says he's "not convinced" a man accused of opening fire at a Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords meet-and-greet acted alone.

At a press conference Saturday evening, he said investigators had reason to believe the suspected gunman came with another person, and authorities are now looking for that person.

A total of 19 people were shot, five fatally.

Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head and was in critical condition Saturday night.

The victims who died were John Roll, 63, Christina Greene, 9, Dorthy Murray, 76, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, Phyllis Scheck, 79, and Gabriel Zimmerman, 30.

Dupnik did not identify the suspected gunman by name, but other officials have identified him as 22-year-old Jared Loughner of Tucson.  Dupnik said the accused had a troubled past.

The sheriff called it a "sad day for America."  But he also hoped Americans were upset with the  heated political rhetoric from radio and TV commentators.

"I hope that some of them or most of them are as angry as I am," he said.  "I think it's time as a country we do a little soul searching."

Dupnik expressed dismay with the "vitriolic rhetoric," especially in Arizona.  "We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132766402

(http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Latest_Headlines/3_APTOPIX_Congresswoman_Shot_.sff_300.jpg?t=1294553634)

Details Of Suspect In Ariz Rampage Slowly Emerge

by The Associated Press
TUCSON, Ariz. January 9, 2011, 12:35 am ET

An initial portrait of a the man accused of shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head in an attack that also killed six people outside a Tucson grocery store slowly began to emerge Saturday, as authorities described a young man with a troubled past and neighbors recalled a 22-year-old who often kept to himself.

One former classmate said the accused gunman, Jared Loughner, often did his own thing. Another described him as a student who disrupted class with occasional outbursts.

Neighbors said Loughner wasn't hostile toward anyone but certainly didn't warm up to anyone, either.

"He was a guy in high school who definitely had his opinions on stuff and didn't seem to care what people thought of him," said Grant Wiens, 22, who told The Associated Press he went to high school and had a class at Pima Community College with Loughner.

Loughner was in custody Saturday after authorities said he opened fire outside a grocery store as Giffords, a Democrat, met with voters. The rampage left the congresswoman wounded. Arizona's chief federal judge, a 9-year-old girl and four others were killed.

Authorities said the accused gunman targeted the three-term congresswoman, but an exact motivation was not immediately known. Many questioned whether the nation's polarized political climate had played a role, even as Loughner's political views remained unclear late Saturday.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described the gunman as mentally unstable and said he possibly acted with an accomplice.

Federal law enforcement officials poured over versions of a MySpace page that belonged to Loughner and over a YouTube video published weeks ago under an account "Classitup10" and linked to him. The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by officials, included a mysterious "Goodbye friends" message published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to "Please don't be mad at me."

On his MySpace page, Loughner spoke of how he liked to read and he also wrote repeatedly about literacy, complaining that the rate was especially low in the congressional district where he lived.

"The majority of people, who reside in District-8 are illiterate hilarious. I don't control your English grammar structure, but you control your English grammar structure," he said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Wiens also said Loughner used to speak critically about religion. He also talked about how he liked to smoke pot.

"He wasn't really too keen on religion it seemed like," Grant Wiens, 22, told The Associated Press. "I don't know if floating through life is the right term or whatever, but he was really just into doing his own thing."

Loughner's MySpace profile indicated he attended and graduated from school in northwest Tucson and had taken college classes. He did not say if he was employed.

Tamara Crawley, director of the Marana Unified School District in Tucson, said Loughner attended Mountain View High School in Tucson for three years but withdrew after completing his junior year in 2006. Crawley did not know why Loughner had withdrawn from Mountain View High and it was not clear if he had transferred to another school in the area.

Lynda Sorenson said she took a math class with Loughner last summer at Pima Community College's Northwest campus and told the Arizona Daily Star he was "obviously very disturbed."

"He disrupted class frequently with nonsensical outbursts," she said.

In a Dec. 15 YouTube video, Loughner describes himself as a U.S. military recruit.

The Army released a statement indicating Loughner was not accepted.

In October 2007, Loughner was cited in Pima County for possession of drug paraphernalia, which was dismissed after he completed a diversion program, according to online records.

A year later he was charged with an unknown "local charge" in Marana near Tucson. That charge was also dismissed following the completion of a diversion program in March 2009, the Daily Star reported.

Ryan Miller, 19, was a sophomore at Mountain View when Loughner was a senior. He said Loughner was seemed like a normal kid.

"I was in shock," he said, describing his reaction to the shooting. "I didn't know what possessed someone our age to do something like this."

Well, if they approved. I think they were not thinking of the children in her life.

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

I agree with you Brandi - but with the relatively long delay in the announcement of her name and the wonders of modern technology, it is possible that a mass text or email or phone call went out to all the parents. I would think it would be something like what went out when Kyron went missing. I know that when there was an accident in our school district with some of our HS kids involved the school sent a text out letting us know the kids had been injured but were ok (I assume the parents gave the OK for the school to do it)

Police recovered a 9mm Glock Model 19 handgun believed used in the shooting, according to senior law enforcement sources. The weapon had a extended magazine, according to a federal law enforcement source briefed on the investigation. The gun was purchased legally, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said.   ::MonkeyNoNo::   Did he purchase the gun, because if he did, I can see probably a background check wasn't done.

http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/p/gunlaws_az.htm

What Are the Gun Laws in Arizona?

From NRAILA



Caution: This summary is meant for general purposes only. Firearm laws frequently change and the following answers may not reflect changes in the laws.

Rifles and Shotguns

    * Permit to purchase rifles and shotguns? No
    * Registration of rifles and shotguns? No
    * Licensing of owners of rifles and shotguns? No
    * Permit to carry rifles and shotguns? No

Handguns

    * Permit to purchase handgun? No
    * Registration of handguns? No
    * Licensing of owners of handguns? No
    * Permit to carry handguns? Yes

Purchase:

    * It is unlawful to sell or give to a minor, without written consent of the minor's parent or legal guardian, a firearm or ammunition.

    * No state permit is required to purchase a shotgun, rifle, or handgun.

    * It is unlawful to sell or transfer a firearm to a "prohibited possessor."

Possession
No state permit is required to possess a shotgun, rifle or handgun. It is unlawful for a "prohibited possessor" to possess a firearm.

    * A prohibited possessor includes a person found to constitute a danger to himself or others pursuant to a court order and whose court ordered treatment has not been terminated.

    * Who has been convicted of a felony involving violence or possession and use of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument and whose civil rights have not been restored.

    * Who is at the time of possession serving a term of imprisonment in any correctional or detention facility.

    * Who at the time of possession is serving a term of probation pursuant to a conviction for a domestic violence offense or a felony offense, parole, community supervision, work furlough, home arrest or release on any other basis or who is serving a term of probation or parole.

    * Who was previously adjudicated delinquent and who possesses, uses or carries a firearm within ten years from the date of adjudication or release for an offense that if committed as an adult would constitute first or second degree burglary, arson, murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault, sexual assault or any felony offense involving the use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument.

    * An unemancipated person under 18 not accompanied by a parent, grandparent, guardian, or a certified hunter safety instructor or certified firearms safety instructor acting with consent of the minor's parent, grandparent or guardian shall not carry or possess on his person, within his immediate control, or in or on a means of transportation a firearm in any place open to the public or on any street, highway, or on private property, except private property owned or leased by the minor or the minor's parent, grandparent, or guardian.

    * This prohibition does not apply to a person between 14 and 17 engaged in lawful hunting, marksmanship practice, transportation of an unloaded firearm for the purpose of hunting or, between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., transportation of an unloaded firearm for the purpose of marksmanship at a range or other area where the discharge of firearms is not prohibited.

((snipped))

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13810298

(http://kold.images.worldnow.com/images/13810298_BG1.jpg)

Authorities search for 'person of interest' in Giffords shooting
Posted: Jan 09, 2011 1:30 AM PST Updated: Jan 09, 2011 6:58 AM PST
Click image to enlarge

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - The Pima County Sheriff's Department has just released a photo of man possibly associated with the accused gunman in Saturday morning's shooting at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords town hall meeting.

Authorities are looking for a Caucasian male, approximately 40-50 years old, dark hair.  He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket.

Anyone who knows the identity of this individual is asked to contact 911, 88-CRIME or the Federal Bureau of Investigation at (520) 791-6974.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Saturday he's "not convinced" the man accused of opening fire at a Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords meet-and-greet acted alone.

Dupnik said in a press conference that investigators had reason to believe the suspected gunman came with another person. Authorities are now looking for that person.

A total of 19 people were shot, five fatally.

Congresswoman Giffords was shot in the head and was in critical condition Saturday night.

The victims who died were John Roll, 63, Christina Greene, 9, Dorthy Murray, 76, Dorwin Stoddard, 76, Phyllis Scheck, 79, and Gabe Zimmerman, 30.

Dupnik did not identify the suspected gunman by name, but other officials have identified him as 22-year-old Jared Loughner of Tucson.  Dupnik said the accused had a troubled past.

The sheriff called it a "sad day for America."  But he also hoped Americans were upset with the  heated political rhetoric from radio and TV commentators.

"I hope that some of them or most of them are as angry as I am," he said.  "I think it's time as a country we do a little soul searching."

Dupnik expressed dismay with the "vitriolic rhetoric," especially in Arizona.  "We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry."

By reading the gun laws in Arizona, it appears that this mentally unstable man was able to purchase a gun legally  ::MonkeyNoNo::

Exactly

http://www.kvoa.com/news/giffords-was-first-target-says-eyewitness/

Giffords was 'first target,' says eyewitness

Posted: Jan 9, 2011 8:47 AM
Updated: Jan 9, 2011 8:49 AM

TUCSON - Dr. Steven Rayle, a former emergency room physician, was feet away from Giffords when the suspect began the shooting rampage. "I looked up just as he shot her," Dr. Rayle says. "Without hesitating, he continued to spray the people close by with bullets. There was really no place for them to go - it was kind of a constricted area."

After he was pinned down by two people at the event, Dr. Rayle says the only thing he thought he heard the suspect say was: "'You're hurting my arm' - there were no political statements or anything."

Dr. Rayle clearly saw the suspect's intentions: "She was the first target - definitely, but he did not hesitate to, at close range - point blank range, to shoot bullets into people."

Dr. Rayle says that when the suspect started shooting, he was able to jump behind a concrete pillar. The shooter moved around the pillar, and Dr. Rayle laid on the ground and pretended to be shot.

Joe Zemudio was down the concourse from the suspect, and when shots rang out, he sprang to action. "I didn't know until later he also had a knife on him. I just came running up to him - I carry a firearm, so I wasn't really afraid."

After the shooting, Dr. Rayle and a colleague checked on the victims and provided medical attention. "I checked on some of the people, I assisted in CPR."

Saving for the record Jared L. Loughner's Youtube profile:

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/JaredLoughnerYoutubeProfile.jpg)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/a/f/0/3L1lsLU-kUw

Good save, Klaas.  I like it when things are kept "for the record", so even if they disappear, they aren't gone.   :smt117

I find his reading interests fascinating, certainly all over the place with his likes.

Not quite as cut and dry as some of the media is saying this morning. 

Jared subscribed to Rep Gifford's youtube channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/giffords2#p/u

(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/GiffordYoutube.jpg)


NOTE:  We have no way of knowing when he subscribed to the account but the FBI knows

PREMEDITATION

I've been listening to MSNBC all morning, and they had a girl on who knew Jared in high school, they were in band together. Evidently Jared had asked Representative Giffords a question, it sounded like she had gone to their high school for some event. She evidently didn't understand his ramblings and when she answered Jared, he said to his friend that she was stupid. I don't see a link on MSNBC's website, but this girl also has been tweeting about Jared, I'm sure this friend's name will be popping up all over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-youtube-videos-_n_806370.html         Article about Jared's possible involvement with a hate group.   

Loughner's college instructor: I was worried he might have a gun in class
By David A. Fahrenthold

A community college instructor who taught Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner was so disturbed by the student's outbursts in class that he requested Loughner's removal from the course, he told the Washington Post in an interview Sunday.

Ben McGahee, a third-year instructor at Pima Community College, taught Loughner in an elementary algebra class last summer. McGahee said that while Loughner never threatened him directly, he was concerned by his behavior.

"I always felt, you know, somewhat paranoid," McGahee said. "When I turned my back to write on the board, I would always turn back quickly--to see if he had a gun."

McGahee said he had to make several complaints before administrators finally removed Loughner.

"They just said, 'Well, he hasn't taken any action to hurt anyone. He hasn't provoked anybody. He hasn't brought any weapons to class,'" McGahee recalled. "'We'll just wait until he takes that next step.'"

On his first day in class, McGahee said, Loughner yelled out a random number during a lesson, then asked the instructor a strange question. "How can you deny math instead of accepting it?" he yelled.

Other times, McGahee said, Loughner would listen to his iPod in class. On quizzes, he would answer some questions accurately, and then write nonsensical answers for others. On one, he wrote "Mayhemfest!" McGahee said he thought that was a reference to a rock-music festival: a concert tour called The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival played in Phoenix last July.

On another test, McGahee said, Loughner wrote the words "Eat+Sleep+Brush Teeth=Math." "He just miserably failed the test," McGahee said.

Finally, several weeks into the class, McGahee said Loughner arrived and pointed to a copy of the U.S. Constitution on the wall.

"'You're violating my First Amendment right of free speech,'" McGahee recalled him saying. "That's when I went to go get the dean."

At that point, he said, a college official came to talk with Loughner, then assured McGahee that he would not return to class. "You don't have to worry about Jared anymore. We asked him to not come back to class," the official said, according to McGahee.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/loughners-college-instructor-i.html?wprss=44  Link to above article

I was reading this girls twitter yesterday, yes she has been giving interviews.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12147334
(video)
Woman tackled Jared Loughner after he shot her
January 9, 2011

A woman who tackled the gunman who shot congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, and 19 other people in Arizona has been praised by police.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told journalists the woman grabbed a magazine of bullets from the man as he was trying to reload his gun. She had also been shot by him.

Two men then grabbed him.

Six people died in the shooting, which happened as Ms Giffords was meeting constituents at a supermarket in Tucson.

Authorities clear man called 'person of interest' in Giffords shooting case

    * Story

Authorities clear man called 'person of interest' in Giffords shooting case

By Kim Smith, Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Sunday, January 9, 2011 2:44 am

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    *
    *

Detectives with the Pima County Sheriff's Department has interviewed the "person of interest" in Saturday's mass shooting and cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The man, a cab driver, told detectives he gave Jared L. Loughner a ride to the Safeway and they entered the store together so Loughner could obtain change to pay his fare, said Bureau Chief Richard Kastigar.

Records substantiate the driver dropped Loughner off at 9:59 a.m., Kastigar said. Loughner was picked up nearby.

The first report of a shooting came in 10:11 a.m. and paramedics were on scene at 10:16 a.m., Kastigar said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller announced this morning he anticipates federal charges will be filed this afternoon against Loughner in the shooting death of U.S. District Judge John Roll and the woundings of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her staff members.

Discussions are underway as to the filing of state charges in regards to the other shooting victims, Mueller said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704482704576072020422761968.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Shooting Captured on Surveillance Video
January 9, 2011

The scene where a congresswoman was shot Saturday was captured on surveillance video, according to law enforcement officials.

The video shows federal judge John Roll chatting with an aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D. Ariz.) moments before the violence erupts, according to officials. Judge Roll was killed in the attack, along with five others. Ms. Giffords remains in critical condition.

After the shooting, investigators searched a safe connected to the shooting suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, and found a letter apparently sent to him by Ms. Giffords's office thanking him for previously attending a similar "Congress on your corner" event in 2007.

Much remains unknown about what motivated Mr. Loughner, who is in custody. But the initial evidence, including the constituent letter, has led law enforcement officials to think that the suspect had been thinking about the congresswoman for years, according to people familiar with the case.

Investigators also found paper on which the suspect apparently wrote the word "assassination" and "I planned ahead." The meaning or significance of that writing isn't clear.

The suspect has been uncooperative with investigators, according to law enforcement officials. Charges are expected to be filed later Sunday.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller said the charges would include the attack on Ms. Giffords and Judge Roll and other victims, with later additional charges likely. Investigators seized computers during a search of the suspect's home, and Mr. Mueller said those were being examined.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/09/arizona-suspected-gunman-no-stranger-to-trouble/

Arizona Suspected Gunman Passed FBI Background Check
By Jana Winter
Published January 09, 2011

New details emerging about the suspected shooter behind Saturday's deadly rampage reveal a 22-year-old man with a troubled past who law enforcement say may have been influenced by American Renaissance, a pro-white publication.

And FoxNews.com has learned that the suspect purchased a firearm legally — and after passing an FBI background check — from Sportsman's Warehouse's Tucson store in November, the company's vice president of hunting operations told FoxNews.com.

Loughner did not present a concealed weapons permit so he was required to pass an FBI background check, which he did "immediately and without incident," said Matt French, speaking from the Sportsman's Warehouse's Utah headquarters.

"To my knowledge, the firearm purchase was without incident," French said.

He could not confirm whether the gun purchased in November was the same gun allegedly used in Saturday's mass shooting, but said it was the only recent firearm purchase made by the suspect at their stores.

"Sportsman's Warehouse is cooperating fully with the authorities in investigating this horrible tragedy," he said.

"Our sincere condolences go to those affected by this unspeakable incident."

This comes as a law enforcement memo based on information provided by the Department of Homeland Security and obtained by Fox News suggests that alleged gunman Jared Loughner — accused of killing six people, shooting Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and wounding 12 others — may have ties to the American Renaissance group, though it's unclear if he was directly affiliated with the publication or group.

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the group as "white nationalist" whose leader, Jared Taylor, is "a kind of modern-day version of the refined but racist colonialist of old."

The memo states that there is "no direct connection" between Loughner and the group, "but strong suspicion is being directed at AmRen / American Renaissance. Suspect is possibly linked to this group. (through videos posted on his MySpace and YouTube account.). The group's ideology is anti-government, anti-immigration, anti-ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government), anti-Semitic."

The memo also includes information about the suspect's mother, who works for the Pima County Board of Supervisors and notes that Loughner has multiple arrests but no criminal record.

But Taylor, a 1973 graduate in philosophy from Yale University, told Fox News on Sunday that he had never heard of Loughner until Saturday and has checked the group's records going back 20 years and has not found any subscriptions for Loughner to American Renaissance publications.

He added he has no indication that Loughner ever attended any of the group's events, which have been held on the East Coast where the organization is based.

Taylor also denied references to the group as being "anti-ZOG."

"That is complete nonsense," he said. "I have absolutely no idea what DHS is talking about. We have never used the term 'ZOG.' We have never thought in those terms. If this is the level of research we are getting from DHS, then heaven help us," he said.

Loughner lives with his parents in a Tucson neighborhood that one neighbor described as part of an area that is notorious for "stash houses" for Mexican gangs to bring drugs into the U.S. and store them.

The neighbor, who asked only to be identified as Jon, said he volunteered at a phone bank for Giffords' 2008 congressional campaign. He said none of the neighbors seem to know any member of the Loughner household, which on Sunday was cordoned off. Two run-down jalopies outside the house along with a front walkway littered with empty paint buckets and a garden hose blocked the walkway and door while the entire front yard is covered in a tangled cactus tree.

Nothing like this has ever happened in this neighborhood. "We've had a number of good DEA busts," Jon said. "It's a shock, it really is. ... It's sad, it's been a sad day."

Another neighbor directly across from the home also did not want to give his name, but said a mother, son and father live at the house.

"They weren't real friendly," said the neighbor who described himself as 60 and retired. They mostly didn't talk to anyone and mainly stayed inside. "Loners," he called them.

Another neighbor, Anthony Woods, who was three years behind Loughner in school, said the father in the household was argumentative.

Woods said the dad would complain about everything from neighbors' trash cans on the street to standing too close to his property by the fence. Woods said law enforcement interviewed the mother and father at the Loughner house Saturday night.

"They confiscated a lot of things" from the house, he said.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said Saturday that Loughner had "a troubled past."

"I'm not a psychiatrist so I have no reason to believe the person was insane. Was he unstable? I would agree with that," he said.

Loughner was kicked out of Pima Community College following a series of run-ins with school officials and police at the colleges where he frequently caused disruptions in classrooms and elsewhere on campus, according to The Arizona Republic.

The tensions with school officials led to Loughner's production of a YouTube video in which he declared the college illegal, the newspaper reports.

The college said Loughner could only return if he received mental-health clearance, according to The Arizona Republic.

Loughner is suspected of posting a series of YouTube videos that show a focus on literacy and currency -- as well as his distrust in the government.

"Hello, my name is Jared Lee Loughner," one of the videos says, in words appearing on the screen. "This video is my introduction to you! My favorite activity is conscience dreaming; the greatest inspiration for my political business information. Some of you don't dream -- sadly."

The video, posted Dec. 15, later turns more political.

"The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution. You don't have to accept the federalist laws," the video's titles say. "In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications: the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar. No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver! No! I won't trust in god!"

Loughner's last writing on his MySpace page was just hours before the shooting.

"Goodbye friends," he wrote. "Please don't be mad at me."

Records obtained from the Pima County, Ariz., criminal database also show Loughner was arrested in 2007 for possessing drug paraphernalia, a misdemeanor charge. The records suggest that Loughner paid a $20 fee and completed a court-ordered program for drug offenders.

Three months later he was cited for running a stop sign, according to court documents.

Another record shows a 2008 arrest for what’s described as a "local charge" in Marana, Ariz., 20 miles northwest of Tucson. The non-criminal charge was dismissed.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said that the gun used in Saturday's massacre was a Glock semi-automatic 9-mm. gun with extended magazine.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/09/arizona-suspected-gunman-no-stranger-to-trouble/#ixzz1AZP143cf

http://abcnews.go.com/US/christina-green-shot-gabrielle-giffords-tuscon-event-loved/story?id=12576408
Video
Mother of Christina Green, Shot at Tucson Event, Says Daughter Wanted to Go Into Politics
Green Died of a Single Gunshot to the Chest, Mom Says
January 9, 2011

At just 9 years old, Christina Green already had big plans to one day serve her country.
Green, who was the youngest of the six victims shot and killed Saturday during the shooting spree outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store, had gone to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' political event to "learn more about politics," according to her mother, Roxanna Green.

"As young as she was, Christina talked about getting all the parties to come together so we could live in a better country," Green told ABC News. "She was going to Giffords' event to ask questions about how she could help and to learn more about politics in our country."

"She was proud of her country and wanted to know more about the political process," she said. "She was a beautiful girl inside and out."

Green, the granddaughter of former Phillies manager Dallas Green, was taken to Giffords' informal town hall meeting by a neighbor who was considered her pseudo-aunt, said her mother.

She died on the scene from a single bullet wound to her chest, when alleged gunman Jared Loughner opened fire, shooting a total of 20 people.

"She had a great morning, she got up early yesterday morning and was talking about the event, and how excited she was," said Green of her daughter's final hours. "She was very mature for her age."

Christina was born on 9/11 and had used her birthdate as a source of inspiration during her short life. She was featured in a book about babies born on 9/11 called "Faces of Hope."

"She was very interested in politics since she was a little girl," Green said. "I think that being born on 9/11 had a lot to do with that."

"She always thought about how she was born on 9/11, and she saw the positive in it," Green said. "She thought of it as a day of hope and change, a chance for the country to come together to be united."

Third grade had already been off to a good start for Christina, who was recently elected student council president at Mesa Verde Elementary School.

In addition to politics, Christina loved to dance and was the only girl on her baseball team, the Pirates, in what is otherwise an all-boys little league.

"She was very popular, she was a girly girl as well as as a tomboy," Green said. "She had done ballet for many years and gymnastics, and wanted to be a cheerleader."

Raised in an observant Catholic household, Christina had just received her first communion at the St. Odilia's Catholic Church, where she was also a member of the choir.

In her free time, Christina loved to take care of her older brother, 11-year-old Dallas who has Asberger's Syndrome, which is on the spectrum of autism disorders.

"She always was very strong and positive for him," Green said.

A Facebook group in memory of Green has been inundated by messages left by strangers devastated over the young girl's death.

One person wrote, "There are no words to comfort the loss of a child by needless violence. May time heal your pain."

Another message read, "From Joint Base Balad, Iraq -- my deepest condolences to the family over the loss of this young patriot and hero. With much sadness, very respectfully James J. Galluzzo III, Major US Army."

Green said she hopes that her daughter's death brings change to the political landscape in the United States.

"All I want is awareness and change, just like Christina would," Green said.

"Things like this should never, ever happen again," she said. "I want there to be a stop for the violence and hatred and all the bashing of politicians isn't not helping, and it's not working."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/09/AR2011010902186.html
Christina-Taylor Green, 9-year-old killed in Tucson, remembered, mourned
January 9, 2011

(http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2011/01/09/PH2011010902212.jpg)
In this undated photo provided by the Green family and distributed by the Arizona Republic newspaper, Christina Green, 9, poses for a photo. Green was one of those killed in an attack on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., a three-term lawmaker, who was shot in the head. (AP)

Christina-Taylor Green's short life was pinned between two national tragedies: She was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and she died Saturday as a gunman apparently targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) shot 20 people in Tucson.

Christina-Taylor, a budding elementary school politician, was among those killed. The third-grader had gone to meet Giffords with a neighbor when a gunman, identified by authorities as 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, opened fire at a political meet-and-greet outside a grocery store. Christina-Taylor died at University Medical Center.

The 9-year-old, who had big brown eyes and long brown hair, had recently been elected to the student council at Mesa Verde Elementary School. She had been interested in politics early on, her father, John Green said Saturday night in an interview with the Arizona Daily Star.

She was a good speaker, athletic and patriotic, her mother, Roxanna Green, told the paper. Christina-Taylor was inspired by her birth on the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, her family said. She was one of 50 babies born on the date featured in a book called "Faces of Hope."

"She was born back east and Sept. 11 affected everyone there, and Christina-Taylor was always very aware of it," her mother told the Star. "She was very patriotic and wearing red, white and blue was really special to her."

As a student council member, Christina-Taylor would have been a leader in her large school district. In the past, elementary school students who were elected to student councils had attended school board meetings and led the pledge of allegiance, said Jeff Grant, board president for Amphitheater Public Schools - a district of 15,000 students.

Grant described Mesa Verde, which has students from kindergarten to fifth grade, as a close-knit. "It's just a tragedy that I think the entire community is in the grips of right now," he said.

John Green is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather is former major league pitcher and ex-Philadelphia Phillies manager Dallas Green, according to ESPN.

The elder Green managed the Phillies from 1979 to 1981, winning a World Series title in 1980. He went on to manage the Yankees and the Mets.

Christina-Taylor shared her family's love of baseball. She was the only girl to play on Canyon del Oro Little League baseball team, the Pirates. She played second base, according to local news reports.

She had one sibling, an 11-year-old brother named Dallas, and the two loved to go swimming together, her parents said.

"She kept up with everyone, she was a strong girl, a very good athlete and a strong swimmer," her mother said. "She was interested in everything. She got a guitar for Christmas, so her next thing was learning to play guitar."

Christina-Taylor had just received her first Holy Communion at St. Odilia's Catholic Church in Tucson, Catholic Diocese of Tucson officials told the Arizona Daily Star. Her uncle Greg Segalini told the Arizona Republic, "She was real special and real sweet."

The girl was already aware of the "inequalities" of the world, Roxanna Green told the the Arizona Daily Star. Christina-Taylor often repeated the same phrase to her mother: "We are so blessed. We have the best life."

http://www.kvoa.com/news/obama-calls-for-nat-l-moment-of-silence-flags-at-half-staff/

Obama calls for Nat'l moment of silence, flags at half-staff

Posted: Jan 9, 2011 12:56 PM
Updated: Jan 9, 2011 12:57 PM

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Obama has released a statement calling on a national moment of silence tomorrow at 11 a.m., and signed a proclamation ordering flags be flown at half-staff as a mark of respect for the victims of the "senseless act of violence" committed yesterday morning.

Obama's statement:

"Tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. eastern standard time, I call on Americans to observe a moment of silence to honor the innocent victims of the senseless tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, including those still fighting for their lives. It will be a time for us to come together as a nation in prayer or reflection, keeping the victims and their families closely at heart."

The President will observe the moment of silence with White House staff on the South Lawn.

The signed proclamation ordering flags be flown at half-staff reads:

"As a mark of respect for the victims of the senseless acts of violence perpetrated on Saturday, January 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona, by the authority vested in me as President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, January 14, 2011. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.


BARACK OBAMA"

That will be:

8am Pacific
9am Mountain Standard
10am Central
11am Eastern

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13811064

Intern rushes to help Congresswoman Giffords
Posted: Jan 09, 2011 10:56 AM PST Updated: Jan 09, 2011 11:51 AM PST

By Karla Ronquillo

TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - An intern who had been on the job for five days is being credited for giving U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords critical help moments after the shooting.

Giffords was one of 19 people wounded when a gunman opened fire at a "Congress on Your Side" event in Marana on Saturday.
Six of victims were killed, including a federal judge, a nine-year-old girl and a member of Giffords' staff.

The suspected gunman Jared Loughner, 22, is in police custody.

A second person of interest is being sought.

According to University Medical Center officials, Daniel Hernandez ran to Giffords' side, pulled her onto his lap and held her head upright to help stop the bleeding.

Hernandez, a junior at the University of Arizona, is a trained nurse.

In an interview to CNN, Hernandez said "when the shooting started, my first instinct was to try and make sure that the congresswoman and her staff were okay.  I have limited experience in triage and training, so when I heard gunshots, my first instinct was to head towards the congresswoman to make sure that she was okay. Once I saw that she was down and there were more than one victim, I went ahead and started doing the limited triage that I could with what I had, so checking for pulses and then also making sure that -- covering and applying pressure to the wounds."

Hernandez said he stayed with Giffords until paramedics arrived and rode with her in the ambulance.

http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=13810987

Red Cross seeks type O blood Sunday for shooting victims
Posted: Jan 09, 2011 10:28 AM PST Updated: Jan 09, 2011 10:42 AM PST

Reporter: Sheryl Kornman

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - The Red Cross is conducting a special blood drive Sunday seeking only O positive and O negative blood.

Only those with O positive or O negative blood are being sought to donate at two sites Red Cross on Sunday:

The Red Cross offices set up for these donations from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. are:

Eastside
7139 E. Broadway at Kolb

Northside
Foothills Mall. South side, second floor
7401 N. La Cholla Blvd

Anyone else who wants to donate blood should make an appointment online to donate at another time.

Go to www.redcrossblood.org.

More on the above:

http://tucsoncitizen.com/mark-evans/archives/393

Daniel Hernandez, UA intern, stays by Gabrielle Giffords’ side
by Mark B. Evans on Jan. 09, 2011, under Politics
UA student pulls her into lap, holds head to stop bleeding

by Jaimee Rose and Mary Jo Pitzl – Jan. 9, 2011 12:01 AM
The Arizona Republic

Daniel Hernandez had been U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ intern for five days when she was shot Saturday outside Tucson.

The junior at the University of Arizona was helping check people in at the “Congress on Your Corner” event when he heard gunfire. He was about 30 feet from the congresswoman. When the shots began, he ran toward them.

“I don’t even know if the gunfire had stopped,” he said Saturday night as he kept a vigil at the University Medical Center cafeteria, gathered near a TV watching tributes and getting updates.

When the shots began that morning, he saw many people lying on the ground, including a young girl. Some were bleeding. Hernandez said he moved from person to person checking pulses.

“First the neck, then the wrist,” he said. One man was already dead. Then he saw Giffords. She had fallen and was lying contorted on the sidewalk. She was bleeding.

Using his hand, Hernandez applied pressure to the entry wound on her forehead. He pulled her into his lap, holding her upright against him so she wouldn’t choke on her own blood. Giffords was conscious, but quiet.

Ron Barber, Giffords’ district director, was next to her. Hernandez told a bystander how to apply pressure to one of Barber’s wounds.

Barber told Hernandez, “Make sure you stay with Gabby. Make sure you help Gabby.”

Hernandez used his hand to apply pressure until someone from inside Safeway brought him clean smocks from the meat department. He used them to apply pressure on the entrance wound, unaware there was an exit wound. He never let go of her.

He stayed with Giffords until paramedics arrived. They strapped her to a board and loaded her into an ambulance. Hernandez climbed in with her. On the ride to the hospital, he held her hand. She squeezed his back.

When they arrived at the hospital, Hernandez was soaked in blood. His family brought him clean clothes because the FBI took his for evidence.

He waited at the hospital while she went into surgery. He needed to tell police what had happened. He overheard people walking by talking about how Giffords had died. He also heard this on NPR. Later, he learned she had lived.

“I was ecstatic,” he said. “She was one of the people I’ve looked up to. Knowing she was alive and still fighting was good news. She’s definitely a fighter, whether for her own life, or standing up for people in southern Arizona.”

The fact that Hernandez was nearby and able to react quickly probably saved Giffords’ life, said state Rep. Matt Heinz, D-Tucson, and a hospital physician. He talked to Hernandez at the hospital after the shooting.

Eight hours after the shooting, Hernandez stood with Giffords’ friends and staff and told them what had happened. The tall, strong 20-year-old said, “Of course you’re afraid, you just kind of have to do what you can.”

They hugged and thanked him. Later, he sat with his mom and sisters and told them about his friends and the staffers who had died that day.

“You just have to be calm and collected,” he said. “You do no good to anyone if you have a breakdown. . . . It was probably not the best idea to run toward the gunshots, but people needed help.”

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/LoughnerComplaint.pdf         Federal charges

Thanks no rose!  Good

Exclusive: Jared Loughner Radically Changed Before Alleged Shooting, Friend Says
Longtime Friend of Suspected Gunman: 'He Was a Good Person... I Don't Know What the Hell Happened to Him'

24 comments
By LEE FERRAN, JASON RYAN, EMILY FRIEDMAN and RICHARD ESPOSITO
Jan. 9, 2011


A longtime friend of Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in custody following the murder of six people in an apparent assassination attempt on Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said there was a mysterious, significant change in him a year before the shooting.


"He was a good person that just somehow changed so much," former classmate and friend Tong Shan told ABC News in an exclusive interview. "I don't know what the hell happened to him."

When she heard news reports of Loughner's arrest in connection with the deadly attack, she said, "I was shocked, but I believed it was him."

According to court documents released today, authorities discovered a safe in Loughner's home with a thank you letter from Giffords for attending a Congress on Your Corner event in 2007 -- the same kind of event Loughner allegedly assaulted Saturday. Another envelope said "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords" and bofe what appears to be Loughner's signature, the documents said.

Shan said she became friends with Loughner the day the two graduated from high school and also had class together at Pima Community College in 2007. She said the two would hang out often after class but lost touch after the semester ended until they reconnected in the summer of 2010 when, Shan said, Loughner acted radically different.

"I don't know might have caused him to change, but from the way he was talking to me [online]... you can see. It was just questions and questions and random, weird questions that didn't go together," she said. "He wanted to know everything... He would just trip out.

"I don't know why it didn't jump out at me, like, 'Hey, something's wrong."

Shan last spoke to Loughner in October, after he was suspended and dropped out of school and before he purchased a semi-automatic handgun from a gunshop in Tucson. But she said while Loughner was "anti-government," he was never violent and never mentioned plans to buy a gun.

When he was suspended from Pima Community College, the school sent a letter to Loughner's parents stating that if Loughner wished to return to the school, he would have to "obtain a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others," the school said in a statement.

The school said Loughner had as many as five run-ins with campus police for "classroom and library disruptions," and was suspended after college police discovered a YouTube video apparently created by Loughner in which he claimed the college is "illegal." Rather than return to school, Loughner dropped out, the statement said.

One Pima Community College student, who had a poetry class with Loughner later in his college career, said he would often act "wildly inappropriate."

"One day [Loughner] started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby," classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. "The rest of us were looking at him in shock ... I thought this young man was troubled."

Another classmate, Lydian Ali, recalled the incident as well.

"A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber," Ali said.



Prima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who only identified the shooter as a 22-year-old white male, said the evidence online and information they've received from two schools that Loughner attended led him to believe the gunman was "unstable."

"There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters today. "I'm not a psychiatrist so I have no reason to believe the person was insane. Was he unstable? I would agree with that."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/09/arizona.shooting.investigation/
Video
Arizona massacre suspect: 'I planned ahead'
January 9, 2011

CNN) -- The suspect in the weekend massacre in Arizona scrawled "my assassination" and "I planned ahead" on an envelope found in his home, according to court documents released Sunday.

The details were part of a criminal complaint filed against 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, the Tucson man charged in Saturday's bloodbath at a supermarket where U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was hosting an open house for constituents. Investigators found a letter from the congresswoman in a safe at the house where Loughner lived with his parents, thanking him for attending a similar 2007 event, a federal agent's affidavit states.

"Also recovered in the safe was an envelope with handwriting on the envelope stating 'I planned ahead,' and 'my assassination' and the name 'Giffords,' along with what appears to be Loughner's signature," the affidavit states.

The shootings killed six people, including U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman. Among the 14 wounded were

Prosecutors filed two first-degree murder counts, two attempted murder counts and one count of attempting to kill a member of Congress against Loughner on Sunday. Those counts involve only victims who worked for the federal government, but state prosecutors also could bring charges in the remaining cases.

Loughner is scheduled to make an initial appearance before a federal magistrate in Phoenix on Monday, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, investigators have found, questioned and cleared a man they had sought as a "person of interest" after the killings, a law enforcement official said Sunday. The man was the cab driver who dropped Loughner off at the Safeway where Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event was being held.

Loughner has invoked his right against self-incrimination and is not talking with investigators, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said. The suspect was suspended from a Tucson community college in October after what the school said were multiple run-ins with campus police that led to his suspension.

"There's reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue," Dupnik told reporters Saturday night.

Pima Community College warned Loughner in a follow-up letter that to return to campus, he had to present a doctor's note stating that his presence would not be "a danger to himself or others."

Online, he railed against government "mind control" and illiteracy in YouTube and MySpace postings. He tried to enlist in the Army in 2008, but was rejected for reasons the service said it could not disclose.

Note the past tense he uses. This guy fully intended to die when he carried out this massacre IMO. He was obviously unstable and had raised a lot of red flags along the way, I find the ease he had in purchasing a deadly weapon appalling.

Nightowl, I so agree with you, it is appalling the ease he had in purchasing a deadly weapon, and the ease it is with others who have no business with a deadly weapon. The favorite interest was reading, really jumps out at a person along with his selection of books.

http://www.fox11az.com/news/local/113172739.html

Initial court appearance set for suspected gunman


Posted on January 9, 2011 at 5:32 PM


PHOENIX (AP) — A gunman accused of shooting an Arizona congresswoman and killing six people at a political event in Tucson is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Monday in Phoenix.

Federal prosecutors say 22-year-old suspect Jared Loughner (LAWF'-ner) will make his initial appearance at 2 p.m. Monday before a magistrate judge at the Sandra Day O'Connor Courthouse in Phoenix.

Loughner remains in federal custody after Saturday's shooting outside a Tucson grocery store that wounded 14 including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Prosecutors say the federal court will set a date for the suspect's preliminary hearing and detention hearing.


NOTE:

That will be

1pm Pacific
2pm Arizona and Mountain
3pm Central
4pm Eastern

http://www.kvoa.com/news/giffords-husband-releases-statement-on-tragedy/

Giffords' husband releases statement on tragedy

Posted: Jan 9, 2011 10:20 PM
Updated: Jan 9, 2011 10:20 PM

Congresswoman Giffords' husband, NASA astonaut Mark Kelly, released the following statement Sunday night:

"On behalf of Gabby and our entire family, I want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the people of Arizona and this great nation for their unbelievable outpouring of support. Gabby was doing what she loved most - hearing from her constituents - when this tragedy occurred. Serving Southern Arizonans is her passion, and nothing makes her more proud than representing them in Congress.

"Like all Americans, we mourn the loss of Judge John M. Roll, Christina Taylor Green, Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard and Gabe Zimmerman, a fine man and beloved member of Gabby's team. We must never forget them, and our prayers are with their families. Our hearts go out to everyone injured yesterday; we hope and pray for their quick recovery. We also extend our thanks and appreciation to all of the first responders, medical personnel, law enforcement, and Arizona citizens who acted swiftly on Saturday and continue to assist our community through this tragedy. Many stories of heroism are emerging, and they are a source of strength for us during this difficult time. We are forever grateful.

"Many of you have offered help. There is little that we can do but pray for those who are struggling. If you are inspired to make a positive gesture, consider two organizations that Gabby has long valued and supported: Tucson's Community Food Bank and the American Red Cross."

Here is information on these two organizations:

Community Food Bank
3003 S Country Club Rd # 221
Tucson, AZ 85713-4084
(520) 622-0525

American Red Cross, Southern Arizona Chapter
2916 East Broadway Boulevard
Tucson, AZ 85716
(520) 318-6740

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/09/christina-taylor-green-girl-killed-in-giffords-shooting-was-bo/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl1|sec1_lnk1|194390


Girl Killed in Giffords Shooting Born on 9/11/01

Jan 9, 2011 – 9:30 AM

Andrea Stone
Senior Washington Correspondent

(http://o.aolcdn.com/photo-hub/news_gallery/7/0/701245/1294594690816.JPEG)
Green Family, The Arizona Republic / AP

Christina Taylor Green, the 9-year-old girl killed in the attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was born on another sad day for the nation, Sept. 11, 2001.

Christina, one of six who died in Saturday's shooting, had been featured in the book, "Faces of Hope, Babies Born on 9/11" about children born on the day of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Green Family, The Arizona Republic / AP
Christina Taylor Green, one of six people killed in a shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., was born on Sept. 11, 2001.

"She came in on a tragedy and now she's gone out on a tragedy, but the nine years in between were very special," her father, John Green, told CNN. "We're all going to miss Christina. We were four people, and now we're three."

According to The Arizona Republic, a neighbor invited Christina to go along to the "Congress on Your Corner" event at a Safeway supermarket because he thought the newly elected student council member and aspiring politician would enjoy it.

"The next thing you know this happened," said her uncle Greg Segalini. "How do you prepare for something like this. My little niece got killed -- took one on the chest and she is dead."

Christina, who loved ballet, was the granddaughter of Dallas Green, former manager of the Phillies, Yankees and Mets. Her father is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.

"We lost a member of the Dodgers family today," owner Frank McCourt said in a statement. "The entire Dodgers organization is mourning the death of John's daughter Christina, and will do everything we can to support John, his wife Roxana and their son Dallas in the aftermath of this senseless tragedy."

Christina's dad spoke to CNN
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2011/01/09/shooting.dad.speaks.cnn

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/10/2011-01-10_chilling_shrine_in_madmans_yard.html

Today, the Daily News reports that Loughner may have had an “alarming altar” consisting of a skull in a flowerpot, lending a “chilling occult dimension” to the attempted assassination:

    A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.

    Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner’s home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.

    A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.

    Experts on Sunday said the elements are featured in the ceremonies of a number of occult groups.

Earlier reports had pegged Loughner as an outspoken atheist, which makes this a little contradictory.  It reminds us to keep our minds open and to refrain from jumping to conclusions — even about the “alarming altar.”  The Daily News has a picture of the “altar,” which looks less than described, although the DN has a big, red “EXCLUSIVE” ribbon across the top left corner.  It might be an “altar,” or it could be the remains of an old party, or just some junk.    ::MonkeyEek::   That would be my guess, remains of an old party, or just junk, but who knows?

Family of suspect in Giffords shooting blocked access to house

Jan. 10, 2011 01:40 PM
The Arizona Republic

FBI agents working on the Gabrielle Giffords shooing encountered trouble gaining entry to the suspect's family home Monday morning.

Family members of Jared Loughner apparently had put on 4-by-4 double-thick plywood that blocked access to the front porch of their north Tucson home.

At about 12:25 p.m., agents began banging on the blockade, yelling, "This is the FBI. Let us in."

Some agents were sent behind the house, and they were able to get inside after talking to family members.

It's not immediately clear why the Loughner family had put up the blockade, but there were reports of at least one media representative who had gotten to the yard of the family home earlier in the day. Loughner remains in custody and has an appearance in federal court later Monday.
Edit to add link per no rose.  MB http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/10/20110110gabrielle-giffords-shooting-suspect-family-barricade-brk10-ON.html
no rose, do you have a link for this article?  If you can find it again, post it and I'll add it to this post.  MuffyBee

just read on Yahoo that Rep Giffords gave her doctors a thumbs up..bless her heart..

the other night on one of the programs, a neighbor was saying that he has lived next door to the killer and his parents for 7 yrs and that they stayed to themselves..were not friendly and didn't do the usual things like waving like neighbors normally do with each other...Jared usually dressed in black clothes and stuck to himself..The parents were said to have been upset upon hearing that their son had been the shooter..mom was crying..
does anyone know if Jared had any siblings?

cookie, do you have a link or source?  Please post it and I can add it to this post.  MuffyBee

I heard the same interview with the neighbor, he never mentioned another kid in the house, so I assumed he didn't have any brothers or sisters, or at least not living in the home.

(http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2011/01/10/news/photos_stories/loughner173005--300x300.jpg)

Suspect in Arizona shooting held without bail

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last Updated: 6:47 PM, January 10, 2011
Posted: 4:14 PM, January 10, 2011

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/suspect_in_arizona_shooting_appears_cjdUq4e1DWT4l0lvm25avM#ixzz1AgSJ9uQa

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/10/20110110gabrielle-giffords-shooting-suspect-family-barricade-brk10-ON.html  link to my post

TY no rose.  I've added it to your post.Muffy    ::bee::

ITA. 

Oh MY!  This guy is truly a schizo.  He is truly scary looking, not to mention pleased he is now famous and NO remorse.   Pic sends chills up my spine!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/09/authorities-charge-man-assassination-try/
Arizona Rampage Suspect May Seek Unabomber Lawyer
January 10, 2011

PHOENIX –  A 22-year-old man described as a social outcast with wild beliefs steeped in mistrust faces a federal court hearing on charges he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a Tucson shooting rampage that left six people dead.

Public defenders are asking that the attorney who defended Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Timothy McVeigh and "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski defend Jared Loughner, who makes his first court appearance Monday at 2 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EST).

The hearing in Phoenix comes just a few hours after President Barack Obama leads a shocked and saddened nation in a moment of silence for the victims and their families. Obama will observe the moment of silence at 11 a.m. EST with White House staff on the South Lawn.

As authorities filed the charges against Loughner Sunday, they alleged he scrawled on an envelope the words "my assassination" and "Giffords" sometime before he took a cab to a shopping center where the congresswoman was meeting with constituents Saturday morning.

A federal judge, a congressional aide and a young girl were among the six people killed, while Giffords and 13 others were injured in the bursts of gunfire outside a Tucson supermarket.
(snip)

Authorities weren't saying late Sunday where Loughner was being held, and officials were working to appoint an attorney for him. Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender in Arizona, said they're asking that San Diego attorney Judy Clarke be appointed.

Clarke, a former federal public defender in San Diego and Spokane, Wash., served on teams that defended McVeigh, Kaczynski and Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons in 1994.

Loughner is charged with one count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress, two counts of killing an employee of the federal government and two counts of attempting to kill a federal employee. More charges are expected.

Discoveries at Loughner's home in southern Arizona, where he lived with his parents in a middle-class neighborhood 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 Democratic lawmaker in which she thanked him for attending a "Congress on your Corner" event at a mall in Tucson in 2007.

Investigators carrying out a search warrant at his parents' home in a middle-class neighborhood found an envelope in a safe with the words "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and the name "Giffords" next to what appears to be his signature.
(snip)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/11/earlyshow/main7234527.shtml
Ex-Friend: Loughner Wanted Eyes of Public, Media
Says Alleged Shooter Was Once "Just a Regular Kid" Who Became Increasingly Isolated, Nihilistic
January 11, 2011

CBS)  TUCSON - In the hours before Jared Lee Loughner allegedly opened fire outside a Tucson supermarket, killing six people, he reached out to an old friend.

Early Saturday morning about 2 a.m., Bryce Tierney's phone lit up. He didn’t pick up - it displayed "restricted number" - but shortly afterwards Tierney listened to the voice mail and heard a quick, chilling message:

"Hey, it's Jared, we've had some good times and peace out."
Tierney, who was an old friend from high school and college, said he had not had contact with Loughner for almost a year, when he was receiving "really weird" text messages - "sort of like the weird, strange, under-the-radar sort of comments that he would make publicly, around people, that would make people feel real uncomfortable," Tierney said.

He described them as "nihilistic comments that make absolutely no sense."

As news of the deadly shooting spread through Tucson, his fears grew, thinking that the shooter may have been his old friend: "I'm not very sure who else would shoot Gabrielle Giffords, you know?"
On CBS' "Early Show" Tuesday, Tierney recalled Loughner's obsession with Giffords goes back to a 2007 event where Loughner posed a question which he didn't feel she answered, and became angry. Tierney said Loughner asked Giffords: "What is government if words have no meaning?"

"I was like, 'Wow, Jared, I can't believe they actually asked your question, because that's sort of ridiculous!'" Tierney said. "He seemed to dwell on the fact that she wouldn't answer his question. I think that was just like the start of it."

When asked if Loughner was the kind of person who wanted attention, Tierney said, "Attention? I would say more just the reaction, more of trolling for a reaction, and the eye of the public, and the eyes of the media, and stuff like that."

Tierney said his friend wasn't political, but he was increasingly frustrated with government.

"I knew Jared Loughner as just a regular kid," Tierney said. "I never thought I'd, you know, know him as a mass murderer."

Loughner stopped talking to his friends last March. In fact, he had no contact with Tierney in the ten months leading up to Saturday's voice mail. Tierney said, "He just seemed sort of down."

He said it's "a very strange, uncomfortable spot to be in, to know that you were possibly, like, one of the last people that he might have attempted to contact, you know, before doing this. It's pretty uncomfortable."

Tierney said he would have picked up the phone Saturday morning if he'd known it was Loughner - and that maybe things would have turned out differently.

"If I knew he was on the other line, I probably would have picked up the phone, I mean, purely based on the fact that I hadn't heard from him in a long, long time," Tierney told anchor Erica Hill. "It's hard to say, like, what I'd say to him because I'm really not sure what he was going to say to me, you know? But if I had the chance, I probably would have answered the phone just because it was a friend that I hadn't talked to in a long time trying, you know, to get back in contact."

"Do you think anything would have been different?" Hill asked.

"I think that's hard to say. But, you know, possibly," Tierney said.

When asked his reaction to Loughner's mug shot, Tierney said, "I think it's what everyone else's reaction was: It's a pretty creepy picture. I mean, it's very disturbing."

"Did you see anything in that face or in those eyes that was the Jared Loughner that you knew, who was a friend of yours?" Hill asked.

"Absolutely not, no. No."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/10/nation/la-na-0111-loughner-parents-20110111
Jared Lee Loughner's parents alone with their anguish, neighbor says
January 10, 2011

Reporting from Tucson — The parents of Jared Lee Loughner, accused of shooting Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 other people, were huddled in seclusion in their Tucson home Monday night, his father crying and his mother so shaken she could not get out of bed, a neighbor told The Times.

As the sun was beginning to set Monday, Randy Loughner called his neighbor, retired gasoline truck driver Wayne Smith, 70, to ask him to get their mail. Smith, who is not particularly close to the Loughners, grabbed the mail and was invited inside.
"They're in there now," Smith said in a subsequent interview with The Times. "They're both in there crying. He's crying and hanging on to me and she's not even out of bed."

Smith described the Loughners as very private and said they knew few people on their street, although they had lived in the neighborhood since before Jared, 22, was born. He said Jared was their only child. Smith said Loughner's mother, Amy, had a good job with good retirement and pay, and Randy was a stay-at-home dad who liked to work on cars.

"He worshipped the boy," Smith said.

Smith said that on Saturday morning just after 11, their quiet neighborhood suddenly filled with sheriff's patrol cars and FBI agents who cordoned off the Loughners' home. Smith said he saw the Loughners come home, with brown plastic grocery bags and bottles of water in the back of their old white pickup truck. The couple parked across the street from their house.

Then Smith saw a TV news report identifying Jared Lee Loughner as the suspect.

"I didn't even know their last name until Saturday," Smith said. But he knew their son's name was Jared.

He approached the Loughners. "I said, 'Guys, I hate to be the one to tell you, but he shot a bunch of people,'" Smith said. Amy Loughner, he said, "just come unglued."

All three wept together outside on Saturday. "We stood right out there and cried for an hour. I'm a softie," Smith said. "A man needs compassion. He's broken up about his son, but also about all those people who died."

Smith said the family is intensely private. "The best way I can describe it, they're like a mountain man," he said. "They want to be alone."

I believe that the parents saw a lot of red flags, I also believe that they didn't think he was capable of what he did, how many parents would? Also, we don't know if the parents tried to get Jared help, but since he was well over the age of 18, and if he didn't want help there isn't a whole lot you can do. I suppose you could have had him committed, but again, the parents probably didn't think he was that bad. If I am wrong I will gladly say I am. He sure appeared to be obsessed with the Congresswoman Giffords, and only he knows why that is. Also on all the ramblings going on, both on the internet and TV about all the vitriol statements and comments made by talk show hosts and politicians. Well no doubt there has been a lot of disgusting comments, actually for me disturbing, but in this case, I really don't think that is what pushed him over the edge IMO

http://abcnews.go.com/US/jared-lee-loughner-family-portrait-isolation/story?id=12587114       Portrait of an isolated family    Looks like I was wrong perhaps about the parents, interesting article.

http://www.kgun9.com/global/story.asp?s=13818705

(http://kgun.images.worldnow.com/images/13818705_BG1.jpg)

Picture shows shrine in back of Jared Loughner's backyard
Updated: Jan 11, 2011 7:00 AM PST

Tucson, AZ (KGUN9) - Jared Lee Loughner made his first court appearance Monday afternoon in Phoenix. Loughner is the man accused of shooting more than a dozen people Saturday January 8th at a Safeway in Northwest Tucson.

Authorities searched Loughner's Tucson home. KGUN9 licensed this picture from Getty Images of a shrine in the back of Loughner's home. You can see a skull placed next to some candles. It's not known who took this picture and how they gained access to Loughner's home.

From the article above:  But around 15 years ago the dynamic abruptly changed, Dahlstrom said.

So when Jared was around 7 something changed. 

That is a great question how someone got in that yard and took pictures. I really don't know what to think about the so called shrine, strange yes.

After reading the article, my mind was centered on that, Klaas.   With varied comments from neighbors or parents of a kid who may have been a friend of Jared, it's hard to figure out what really was going on there. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/11/arizonans-rally-prevent-westboro-church-disruption-shooting-victims-funerals/
Arizonans Rally to Prevent Westboro Church Disruption of Shooting Victims' Funerals
January 11, 2011

Disgusted Arizona residents are locking arms to stop the Westboro Baptist Church from disrupting the funerals for victims of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, with bikers and others organizing a massive counter-protest and state lawmakers fast-tracking a bill to hamstring the so-called church.

The Kansas-based Westboro church is notorious for showing up at the funerals of dead soldiers and other high-profile gatherings wielding inflammatory anti-gay signs.

But when the church announced it would picket the funeral Thursday for the 9-year-old girl fatally shot over the weekend by a gunman at a Tucson grocery story who killed five others and injured 14 attending a town-hall session by Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Tucson- and Phoenix-area residents started organizing immediately.

They may not be able to stop them, but they plan on giving the grieving family as much of a buffer as possible between the protesters and the service.

"It makes me sick to my stomach," said Glen Littell, who's bringing a pack of bikers from the Phoenix Motorcycle Rider Group to Tucson on Thursday. "They're a stench from a slaughterhouse. We're just going to block the stench so the family can catch their breath."

Arizona state lawmakers are also scrambling -- to pass a bill that would order protesters to stay 300 feet away from the funeral. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the lead sponsor on the bill, said in an e-mail to colleagues that the plan is to suspend the rules Tuesday and fast-track the bill to protect the victims' families from the "hateful protest" from the Westboro Baptist Church.

She said she has the support of the Senate president and Gov. Jan Brewer, and the bill will go into effect "immediately" once it's signed.

"It's gonna happen," Sinema said. The senator said she was "real upset" after learning that the Westboro church planned on protesting but had a visceral reaction after reading their press release and sprung into action.

"It is the most disgusting thing I ever read in my entire life," she told FoxNews.com. "I literally threw up after I read it. … I'm like, 'I'm gonna fix this.'"

Littell said his riders are not looking for any violent confrontations. But he told FoxNews.com that Arizona bikers are going to do "whatever we have to do" to cordon off the family from the protests. A group called the Patriot Guard Riders often does this when the Westboro church pickets military funerals, but Littell said that group is not traveling to Tucson, so "we're stepping in."

"Our sole purpose will be to allow that family some dignity and respect … without having to worry about the a--holes," he said.

It's not clear whether the Westboro church intends to picket the funerals of all the victims of Saturday's attack. One press release from the group declared, "Thank God for the shooter," and said the group would picket the "funerals." Another release announced plans only for the protest on Thursday.

"God sent the shooter to deal with idolatrous America," the group said in a statement.

The Westboro church, led by Fred Phelps, believes that tragic events like the deaths of soldiers are punishment for tolerance of homosexuality.

The Supreme Court last fall heard arguments in a case brought against Phelps by the father of a soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral was protested by the group in 2006. The father, Albert Snyder, had won a multi-million dollar verdict against the church, claiming invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether free speech can be curbed at specific locations and events.

Sinema said the bill she was introducing is modeled on an Ohio law that has withstood court challenge. It would technically apply to protesters at any Arizona funeral, though Sinema was clear that it's directed at Westboro.

She said she hopes the protesters and counter-protesters avoid any violence at the service. Meanwhile, several grassroots groups have popped up on Facebook calling on Tucson residents to intervene.

"We will create a wall of humanity to allow the families who've lost their love ones to hold their funerals in peace, held with dignity, and surrounded in love," one of the Facebook groups says in a statement.

Another calls for a "peaceful protest" of the church at the funeral Thursday for 9-year-old Christina Green.

Littell has notified the Pima County Sheriff's Department and has reached out to several other biker groups notifying them of their planned presence at Green's funeral. He crossed his fingers that the Hells Angels would join them.

"Nothing says stand back and be silent like a Hells Angels presence," he said.

Littell added that if the church moves on to picket other funerals, his riders will follow.

"We're getting word there's gonna be a pretty large presence of bikers," he said. "Word's spreading. And spreading quickly."

To make a family all of a sudden become so isolated, something very bad must have happened, how you go from friendly and nice to avoiding and not letting your child play with the other kids any longer, is just weird. We will probably find out more, and am curious what the prepared statement from dad is going to say?

I sure hope the parents and family are buffered the best they can be from the Westboro Baptist Church  ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/11/arizona.funeral.westboro/?hpt=Mid
video
Arizona lawmakers plan to block protesters within 300 feet of funerals
January 11, 2011

Tucson, Arizona (CNN) -- The Arizona State Legislature is expected to pass legislation Tuesday that will bar protesters at funerals from getting within 300 feet of services, a spokesman for the state Senate said.

The action, according to Senate spokesman Daniel Scarpinato, is in direct response to a controversial church's announcement that it will picket the funeral of Christina Green, the 9-year-old who was one of six people killed Saturday during the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, has made its name by staging protests at funerals of people who died of AIDS, gay people, soldiers and even Coretta Scott King.

Tucson just isn't that kind of town, says Christin Gilmer.

"For something like this to happen in Tucson was a really big shock to us all," she said. "Our nightmare happened when we saw Westboro Baptist Church was going to picket the funerals."
Loughner's classmates speak out
Gupta: How Giffords survived brain shot
Who is Gabrielle Giffords?
How do you defend a shooting suspect?
RELATED TOPICS

    * Gabrielle Giffords
    * Westboro Baptist Church
    * Tucson

In addition to the expected legislation, some Tucson residents are planning an "angel action" -- with 8-by-10-foot "angel wings" worn by participants to shield mourners from picketers. Angel actions were created by Coloradan Romaine Patterson, who was shocked to find the Topeka church and its neon signs outside the 1999 funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man beaten and left on a fence to die in Laramie, Wyoming.

"We want to surround them, in a non-violent way, to say that our community is united," Gilmer said. "We're a peaceful haven."

"You don't mess with Tucson," said Gilmer, 26, who described it as "a little dot of blue in a sea of red."

But political persuasions don't matter, she said. Republicans, Democrats, independents, right, left and center -- they've all offered their support. Forty-two people have signed up on a Facebook page called "Build Angel Wings for the Westboro Funeral Counter-Protest and Meeting" and more than 4,500 have signed up on another page to "Show Support for the Families of the Tucson Shooting Victims."

Jeff Rogers, the chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, said Tuesday that his organization as well as the local Republican Party also will ask people to line the funeral routes to form a barricade if the church follows through on its planned protest.

"People, businesses, they're all donating material and money to build the angel wings," said Gilmer, who is helping organize the action. And, she added, they're donating to a fund created to help pay for services for the victims of the shooting.

Chelsea Cohen, a 20-year-old senior at the University of Arizona who launched the "Show Support" Facebook page, said she never expected such a response.

"Once I heard that the Westboro Baptist Church was coming, I felt like something should be done to show support for the families," she said. "I don't have any experience in organizing these things. I thought I might get 50 to 100 people."

Cohen said she thinks many of the 4,500 people who've signed up on the Facebook page will be there "in spirit" on Thursday, when mourners gather for the funeral of Christina Taylor Green, who was born on September 11, 2001. But she added, Tucson is an active town, and the response isn't likely to be small.

"This isn't a counter-protest," she said. "We wanted it to show support for the families and to show that Tucson is there with love and support."

They don't want to interfere with the funeral in any way, Cohen said.

"We plan on being completely silent, and we're asking people not to bring signs or make comments about the Westboro Baptist Church," she said.

The angels will be doing the same thing.

"We're going to silently stand there so people can mourn the death of a 9-year-old girl who died in a senseless tragedy," Gilmer said.

Cohen said several groups are planning to be at the funeral to show their support, and there is an effort afoot to bring them all together "into one group so we can all be on the same page."

"I hope that everyone there can convey the peaceful message that we want to convey, she said

And if the church picketers persist, the silent supporters will be on hand for the funerals of U.S. District Judge John Roll, Gabriel Zimmerman, Dorothy Morris, Dorwin Stoddard and Phyllis Schneck, the other five victims of Saturday's shooting. Giffords, who was shot in the head and is in critical condition, and 13 other people were wounded.

Westboro Baptist Church, founded by its spiritual leader, Fred Phelps, and run mostly by family members, did not respond to a request for an interview in time for this article. But a flier released by the church about the picket targets the Roman Catholic Church because Christina and her family were members.

"God hates Catholics!" the flier, posted on the church's "God Hates Fags" website, says. "God calls your religion 'vain,' as it's empty of His truth; you worship idols!"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41018273/ns/health-health_care/
Doctor: Giffords breathing on her own
Ariz. congresswoman remains on a breathing tube to protect against complications
January 11, 2011

NEW YORK — Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is breathing on her own, one of the doctors treating her said Tuesday.

Dr. Michael Lemole, the chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, said at a news conference that the congresswoman is still following simple commands, although she remains on a breathing tube to protect against complications such as pneumonia. She's alert and responding to doctors.

Earlier Tuesday Lemole told TODAY there were no significant changes in her condition overnight. "As frustrating as that may sound, that's a good thing," Lemole said.

When asked about swelling in her brain on the third day, Lemole said a CAT scan early Tuesday showed no increase in swelling, although he cautioned that it can sometimes take longer for the condition to peak. Nearly half of Giffords' skull was removed to alleviate any swelling.
She has given a thumbs-up sign and tried to grab at the breathing tube, an encouraging sign of the level of consciousness and her reaction to pain.

"The fact that she's able to register that discomfort and then react to it, again, it means the brain is working on a higher level," Lemole said.

Without speculating on the congresswoman's long-term prognosis, Lemole said she has the "full range" of recovery ahead of her.

"I've seen people in this scenario make very little improvement and require constant care, and I've seen other people ... who have made remarkable recoveries -- functional recoveries -- and gone back to work," Lemole said. People who suffer penetrating traumatic brain injuries often develop paralysis and cognitive problems.

Usually with a penetrating injury through the skull, survival and recovery is "abysmal," said Lemole at the news conference. "She has no right to look this good."

Giffords is expected to remain in the ICU for at least another week.
(snip)

http://www.kvoa.com/news/wednesday-s-mass-memorial-opens-doors-at-4-p-m-/

Wednesday's mass memorial opens doors at 4 p.m.

Posted: Jan 11, 2011 10:23 AM

TUCSON - The mass memorial service scheduled for Wednesday will open to the public at 4 p.m. at the McKale Center on the UA campus.

Together We Thrive: Tucson and America," is free and open to the campus and greater Tucson community, according to a UA press release.

President Obama and the First Lady are planning on attending the service, which will begin a 6 p.m.

Attendees are encourages to show up early, as a capacity crows is expected, and there will be heavy security as part of the President's visit.

The event will include remarks by President Obama, UA President Robert Shelton, state and federal officials and members of the Associated Students of the UA.

The event will also include a Native-American blessing, a moment a silence, a poetry reading, and presentation of messages from the public.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/11/giffords.brain.surgery/?hpt=Sbin

(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/HEALTH/01/11/giffords.brain.surgery/t1larg.gabby.cnn.jpg)

Giffords in key period after brain injury
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN

(CNN) -- After surviving a gunshot wound to the head at a political event Saturday, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remains in critical condition, and Tuesday was seen as significant in her recovery.

The brain tends to swell the most on the third day after a traumatic injury, and it's a very good sign if she makes it past the third and fourth day, said Dr. Keith Black, chairman of the Cedars-Sinai Hospital Department of Neurosurgery in Los Angeles, who is not involved in treating Giffords.

She has a breathing tube to protect her lungs, but is generating her own breaths, said Dr. Michael Lemole, chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, at a news conference Tuesday. Doctors say Giffords has been responsive to commands.

"It's simply asking her to raise fingers, to squeeze on their fingers. It's not at a point yet where they can ask her to talk, because she's still on a respirator. But the signs that she is conscious are manifesting and we're very excited," Mike McNulty, Giffords' campaign chairman and close friend, told CNN's John King on Monday.

The first week or two is considered the acute and critical care stage, said Dr. M. Sean Grady, chief of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who is not involved in Giffords' care. After that, the degree and duration of recovery depend on how much tissue was damaged, and what the consequences of that damage are. Knowing the extent of impairment is impossible before Giffords wakes up, he said.

Recovery will take several months, even up to a year and a half, experts say.

Gunshot wounds to the head are fatal in more than 90% of cases, and many patients die before arriving at a hospital, according to neurosurgery experts at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About 1.7 million people experience traumatic brain injuries each year; of them, 52,000 die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women are less likely than men to suffer them. About 80% of patients with traumatic brain injuries receive treatment and are released from an emergency department.

ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff, who nearly died five years ago from an IED explosion in Iraq, is such a survivor. He wrote Monday that in a way, Giffords' case seems more hopeful than his own, because she has responded to simple commands at a stage when he did not, and interventions have improved even since his injury.

"Medicine has never been so advanced as it is today. If I was hit five years earlier I really don't believe I would have survived. I know in my heart that she will recover as well," Woodruff wrote.

"Still it takes so much longer to regain what we once had. There is no medicine or science or facts that can prove the power of the family. I was surrounded by my wife, parents, children and friends and that made this trip much faster."

James Brady, who was President Reagan's press secretary, suffered a brain injury during an assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981. He is partially paralyzed, and has impairments in speech and memory.

"The brain is just as treatable as any other organ in the body; it's just that yes, it's a lot more delicate," said Dr. Stephan Mayer, director of the Neurological Intensive Care Unit at Columbia University Medical Center, who is not involved in Giffords' care.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have actually helped U.S. surgeons advance their techniques in treating traumatic brain injuries, Mayer said. Brain injury is the signature of modern warfare, and surgeons faced with a plethora of patients from missiles, blasts and explosions have developed a better understanding of how to help the brain heal.

Dr. Peter Rhee, Giffords' surgeon at University Medical Center in Tucson, told the Los Angeles Times his years of experience doing battlefield casualty care in the Navy prepared him for situations like treating Giffords and other victims of Saturday's shooting. But it also put things in perspective: "When we have a mass casualty of 11 people here, it's really not as bad as it can get," he told the Times.

The craniectomy, the procedure that Giffords underwent -- which involves removing portions of the skull to allow the injured brain room to swell -- is one of those advances that had success in Iraq, and have subsequently become more common in the U.S., Mayer said. U.S. doctors feared this procedure would leave patients as vegetables, or with a lifetime of misery and suffering. They didn't understand the point of leaving the skull bone off. But the brain is "more resilient and plastic than we thought," Mayer said.

Neurosurgeons distinguish between "penetrating" injuries, such as bullets that go through the brain, and "blunt" injuries, which refer to the trauma of hitting one's head against an object or the floor, for example. A bullet creates a focused wound to the brain, concentrated in one area, while a concussion or other blunt injury creates more diffuse harm, said Grady.

Because it's easier to know which tissue is damaged, a focused wound can be better from the surgeon's point of view, Grady said. However, in some cases, the blast wave of a bullet can spread through brain tissue, impacting multiple areas.

Both of these forms of brain injury have significant neurological consequences, and can cause spinal fluid leaks and infection, Grady said.

"It's a little bit like Humpty Dumpty, we're not able to put brains back together again," Grady said. Still, "the brain is capable of remarkable recovery," he said.

In Giffords' case, the bullet entered and exited only the left hemisphere of the brain. If Giffords was lucky enough to not have certain areas critically damaged, she has a good chance to make a substantial recovery, Grady said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A5RE20110111
Tucson shooting victim shielded wife from hail of bullets
January 11, 2011

(Reuters) - An elderly man who died using his body to shield his wife from a withering hail of bullets when a gunman sprayed a crowd in Tucson on Saturday, was remembered for his heroics on Tuesday.
Dorwan Stoddard, a 76-year-old retired construction worker, died saving his wife, Mavanelle, by covering her on the ground as the gunmen shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a street corner congressional outreach event.

"We are just blessed that he is walking with the Lord now, but what a way to go," Mavanelle's daughter Angela Robinson, said during a morning news conference at Tucson's University Medical Center on Tuesday, at which the relatives of the dead and wounded joined medical staff to tell their stories.

A 22-year-old college dropout, Jared Lee Loughner, made his first court appearance on Monday on five federal charges, including the attempted assassination of Giffords, who remains in critical condition.

Among the dead were a federal judge, a congressional aide to Giffords and nine-year-old student Christina Taylor-Green, who was being escorted to the event by a family friend to get a glimpse of government in action.

CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS

This was the second love match for the retired couple -- they were boyfriend and girlfriend in sixth grade. After both had 40-year marriages end in a spouse's death, they were reunited through a cousin and soon became a couple again, Robinson said.

Only after going with her husband to the emergency room did Mavanelle realize she had also been shot. She was listed in fair condition on Monday and is doing well, despite the traumatic ordeal, another daughter Penny Wilson said.

"She is doing quite well, I think," Wilson said. "She has a lot of strength."

Also at the news conference was Bill Hileman whose wife Susan was shot three times and suffered a broken hip at the store, while escorting Taylor-Green to the "Congress on the Corner" event.

Hileman said his wife was having "flashbacks" to the incident during moments of transition between sleep and waking, Bill Hileman said.

"She's calling out ... 'Christina, Christina! let's get out of here! Let's get out of here!" he said.

Hileman's voice wavered as he struggled to describe how he told his wife that the girl had died. He said that as soon as Susan had a tube removed, allowing her to talk, she asked about the girl.

"She grabbed my hand and looked in my eyes and said, 'What about Christina?'" he said.

(Writing by Tim Gaynor, editing by Greg McCune)

As a christain and a baptist, I am thoroughly humiliated by Westboro church.  They are just extremists as any other radical terrorist religion.  They make a mockery of real christians.  I wish I could be there to help in the wall to keep those freaks out!  Lord have mercy, they are planning a protest in a childs funeral?  How disgusting!  God Bless all those bikers!

It is so good to hear of Gabby's improvement (though caucious), it's very encouraging.  And the story of the older couple, where the husband protected his life long love.  How heartbreaking, but inspirational.  This is all so tragic!

I'm not sure about the parents, as we really don't know the whole story.  But as a parent, I have to feel sympathy right now, as I couldn't imaging one of my children doing that.  Signs or not, you just don't want to believe that.  (Unlike the Anthonys, who have ALL the evidence in thier faces and remain in denial or obviously hiding something for their precious daughter)

Aaaarrgghh, these cases drive me nuts! ::MonkeyMad::

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot  Interesting article about the family, and about the day of the shooting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_congresswoman_shot_obama                President to be nation's consoler at memorial.  I hope that people will respect what he has to say, and not start ripping the speech apart right and left   ::MonkeyNoNo::

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075851892478080.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories           Postings of a very troubled mind

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/7377741.html
Dad pursued Ariz. massacre suspect before shooting
January 12, 2011

TUCSON, Ariz. — Mysterious black bag in hand, Jared Loughner ran into the desert, his angry father stopping pursuit in his truck.

Hours after Randy Loughner's futile confrontation with his 22-year-old son Saturday morning, six people were shot dead and more than a dozen others wounded — and Jared Loughner was in custody.

The sheriff's deputies who swarmed the Loughners' house removed what they describe as evidence Jared Loughner was targeting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who doctors said Tuesday was breathing on her own for the first time after taking a bullet to the forehead. Among the handwritten notes was one with the words "Die, bitch," which authorities told The Associated Press they believe was 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." Capt. Chris 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.

On the morning of the shooting, a mumbling Jared Loughner fled after his father asked him why he was removing a black bag from the trunk of a family car, said Nanos and Rick Kastigar, chief of the department's investigations bureau. Investigators are still searching for the bag.

Meanwhile, this city held a tribute to victims the eve of a presidential visit.

On Tuesday night, several hundred mourners filled a Tucson church for a public Mass to remember the slain and pray for the injured. As people filed in, nine young girls sang "Amazing Grace." The youngest victim of the attack, 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, was a member of that choir.

"I know she is singing with us tonight," said Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas, who presided over the service.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama visits Arizona and gives a speech honoring the victims to a rattled state and nation.

In one apparent reaction, 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 shooting spree, 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. "We wish that there were, so we could make you feel better. We don't understand why this happened.

"We care very deeply about the victims and their families. We are so very sorry for their loss."

Sheriff's deputies had been to the Loughner home at least once before the attack, spokesman Jason Ogan said. He didn't know why or when the visit occurred, and said department lawyers were reviewing the paperwork and expected to release it Wednesday.

The visits were for nonviolent incidents, including a report by Jared Loughner of identity theft, a noise complaint and Amy Loughner's claim that someone had stolen her license plate sticker, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

In addition to the new details about the hours before the shooting, interviews with those who knew Loughner or his family painted a picture of a young loner who tried to fit in.

Before everything fell apart, he went through the motions as many young men do nowadays: Living at home with his parents, working low-wage jobs at big brand stores and volunteering time doing things he liked.

None of it worked. His relationship with his parents was strained. He clashed with co-workers and police. And he couldn't follow the rules at an animal shelter where he spent some time.

One close high school friend who requested anonymity to avoid the publicity surrounding the case said he would wait outside 10 minutes for Jared to leave the house when they were going out. When Jared would get into the car, he'd say that it took so long because his parents were hassling him.

The parents of another close friend recalled how Loughner's parents showed up at their doorstep in 2008 looking for their son, who had left home about a week before and broken off contact.

While the friend, Zach Osler, didn't want to talk with the AP, his parents Roxanne and George Osler IV did.

With the Loughners at their house, Zach Osler told them the name of the place where their only child was staying, Zach's father said.

Loughner was arrested in October 2008 on a vandalism charge near Tucson after admitting he scrawled the letters "C" and "X" on a road sign in a reference to what he said was Christianity. His address listed on the police report was an apartment near his home.

Loughner eventually moved back in with his parents.

Even when Loughner tried to do good, it didn't work out.

A year ago, he volunteered walking dogs at the county animal shelter, said Kim Janes, manager of the Pima Animal Care Center. He liked dogs; neighbors remember him as the kid they would see walking his own.

But at the shelter, staff became concerned: He was allowing dogs to play in an area that was being disinfected after one had contracted a potentially deadly disease, the parvovirus.

"He didn't think the disease was that threatening and when we tried to explain how dangerous some of the diseases are, he didn't get it," Janes said.

Loughner wouldn't agree to keep dogs from the restricted area, and was asked to come back when he would. He never returned.

Loughner also jumped from paid job to job because he couldn't get along with co-workers, according to the close high school friend who requested anonymity. Employers included a Quiznos sandwich shop and Banana Republic, the friend said.

On his application at the animal shelter, he listed customer service work at Eddie Bauer.

Loughner grew up on an unremarkable Tucson block of low-slung homes with palm trees and cactus gardens out front. Fittingly, it's called Soledad Avenue — Spanish for solitude.

Solitude found Loughner, even when he tried to escape it. He had buddies but always fell out of touch, typically severing the friendship with a text message. Zach Osler was one such friend.

Loughner's father moved into the house as a bachelor, and eventually got married, longtime next-door neighbor George Gayan said. Property records show Randy Loughner has lived there since 1977.

Gayan said he and Randy Loughner had "differences of opinion but nothing where it was radical or violent." He declined to provide specifics. "As time went on, they indicated they wanted privacy," Gayan said.

Unlike other homes on the block, the Loughners' is obscured by plants. It was assessed in 2010 at $137,842.

Randy Loughner apparently has not worked for years — at least outside his home.

Amy Loughner got a job with the county parks and recreation department just before Jared was born, and since at least 2002 has been the supervisor for Roy P. Drachman Agua Caliente Park on the outskirts of the city. She earns $25.70 an hour, according to Gwyn Hatcher, Pima County's human resources director.

Linda McKinley, 62, has lived down the street from the Loughner family for decades and said the parents could not be nicer — but that she had misgivings about Jared as he got older.

"As a parent, my heart aches for them," she said.

She added that when she was outside watering her plants she would see Jared riding down the street on his bike, often talking to himself or yelling out randomly to no one.

McKinley recalled that once he yelled to some children on the street: "I'm coming to get you!"

Westboro Church Cancels Picket at 9-Year-Old Arizona Shooting Victim's Funeral

Published January 12, 2011
| FoxNews.com

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/12/westboro-church-cancels-picket-year-old-arizona-shooting-victims-funeral/#ixzz1ArSYrG7T

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A controversial Kansas church has decided not protest at the funeral of a 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.

Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., says church members will skip Thursday's funeral of Christina Taylor Green.

Phelps-Roper was interviewed Tuesday by a station in Toronto, Canada, and is scheduled to be on a morning talk show Saturday. She says Westboro Baptist Church decided not to picket in exchange for the airtime.

Phelps-Roper says the group will picket the funeral Friday for U.S. District Judge John Roll and at the intersection where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot.

The Arizona Legislature unanimously passed a measure Tuesday banning protests at or near funeral sites.

The Topeka Capital-Journal first reported the church's decision to skip the girl's funeral.

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpps/news/faith/westboro-church-funeral-protest-apx-01122011_11406745
Church Agrees Not to Protest Slain Child's Funeral
January 12, 2011

KANSAS CITY - A Kansas church that pickets the funerals of soldiers and blames their deaths on the country's tolerance of homosexuality now says it won't protest the funerals of any victims of Arizona's mass shooting.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church, says her church has agreed to avoid Thursday's funeral of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green in exchange for live radio interviews in Canada and Arizona.

The church also promised to not protest the funeral of U.S. District Judge John Roll or other victims of the shooting after a nationally syndicated radio show agreed to host church members Monday.

Christina and Roll were among six killed in the shooting Saturday targeting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Westboro church members picket high-profile funerals

The memorial was very moving.
Pres. Obama said all the right things and was a very comforting.
A little ray of hope in light of this tragedy.

Text of Obama's speech~ 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/01/12/2011-01-12_full_text_president_obamas_remarks_at_m

Thank-you, I agree with you, the President did a wonderful job.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/01/13/arizona.flag.memorial/?hpt=T2
video
9/11 flag heralds funeral service for youngest Arizona shooting victim
January 13, 2011

flag that was nearly destroyed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, was raised outside of the funeral service Thursday for 9-year-old Christina Green, who was born on that fateful day.

The banner, which measures 20 feet high and 30 feet wide, was draped between the extended ladders of two fire trucks outside the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Tucson, Arizona, forming an arch under which Christina's family passed as they arrived ahead of the 1 p.m. (3 p.m. ET) service.

John and Roxanna Green, Christina's parents; and her 11-year-old brother, Dallas, paused for a few moments to look up at the flag as it rippled against the clear blue sky. A few minutes later, more relatives emerged from the same black SUV limousine that brought her immediate family, also craning their necks to take in the huge banner.
(snipped)

http://abcnews.go.com/ad/gmaintroad.html?goback=http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/tucson-shooting-giffords-recovery-helped-family-friends/story?id=12608078
video
Surrounded by Loved Ones, Giffords Opens Her Eyes
Giffords' Recovery a 'Miracle,' Doctor Says
January 13, 2011

Five days after being shot in the head, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords opened her eyes of her own accord.
In a display that surprised doctors and elicited tears of joy from her loved ones who were present, Giffords reportedly reached out toward husband Mark Kelly in an attempt to give him a hug.

Giffords began the struggle to open her eyes and lift her left arm in response to the support and encouragement of friends Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who visited Giffords at the hospital Wednesday evening.
(snipped)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/13/national/main7243407.shtml
Cops: Loughner's "Mystery Bag" Contained Ammo
Man Walking Dog Found Ammunition Bag Authorities think Was Discarded by Suspected Gunman in Arizona Shooting
January 13, 2011

UCSON, Ariz. - A man walking his dog has found a black bag holding ammunition that authorities believe was discarded by a gunman accused of trying to assassinate an Arizona congresswoman.

Chief Rick Kastigar with the Pima County Sheriff's Office told The Associated Press that an 18-year-old found the bag Thursday morning in a neighborhood near where the suspect lives. He went to get another man, who looked inside and saw ammunition.

Authorities have said the suspect, Jared Loughner, and his father got into a confrontation over the bag at their home in the hours before the shooting.
This detail is the latest in a series of snapshots emerging about the final hours before Loughner allegedly opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock handgun in a crowded Tucson Safeway parking lot.

Authorities said Wednesday that a wildlife officer pulled over the suspect in the assassination attempt against an Arizona congresswoman less than three hours before the deadly attack.

Lougher, 22, ran a red light but was let off with a warning at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, the Arizona Game and Fish Department said. The officer took Loughner's driver's license and vehicle registration information but found no outstanding warrants on Loughner or his vehicle.

Wildlife officers have full authority to make traffic stops, although they usually don't do so unless public safety is at risk, the department said in a news release.

Jim Paxon, chief information officer for Arizona Game and Fish told CBS News that the stop took place at Interstate 10 and an unnamed cross street, "several miles" from the Safeway store where the shootings took place.

The night before the shooting, Friday, Jan. 7, Loughner slept at an area motel. He apparently drove to the motel in the Chevy Nova now parked at the Loughner home. Police have since searched the vehicle thoroughly.

At 2:33 a.m. Saturday, Loughner visited a convenience store less than a mile from his house, CBS News reports. Alone, he bought a doughnut, a soft drink and several energy bars. He did not buy alcohol.

Surveillance video of Loughner at the Catalina Mart has been given to the FBI, which wanted the video to see if he had any accomplices, CBS News reports. The FBI scanned Loughner's credit card purchases to track his whereabouts before the shooting.

The morning of the shooting, Loughner went to two WalMart stores to buy ammunition. He left the first store because the clerk was too slow. He bought the ammo at the second store.

Either right before or right after buying the ammo, Loughner was pulled over for running a red light and released, in the earlier described incident.

After being pulled over, Loughner went home and had a confrontation with his father, Randy Loughner.

Loughner ran into the desert from his angry father, who was chasing his son after seeing him remove a black bag from the trunk of a family car, said Rick Kastigar, chief of the Pima County Sheriffs Department's investigations bureau. Randy Loughner had apparently asked after the bag, and his son then fled.

After the run-in with his dad, he took a cab from a convenience store to the Safeway.

The suspect was "moving around quite a bit, going from location to location," the morning of the shooting, the FBI said recently, as they continue to develop a time line of the suspects movements prior to the shooting and the weeks and months before as well.

The sheriff's deputies who swarmed the Loughners' house removed what they describe as evidence Loughner was targeting Giffords. Among the handwritten notes was one with the words "Die, bitch," which authorities told The Associated Press they believe was 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." Capt. Chris 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 addition to the new details about the hours before the shooting, interviews with those who knew Loughner or his family painted a picture of a young loner who tried to fit in, but was increasingly troubled.

Before everything fell apart, he went through the motions as many young men do nowadays: Living at home with his parents, working low-wage jobs at big brand stores and volunteering time doing things he liked.

None of it worked. His relationship with his parents was strained. He clashed with co-workers and police. And he couldn't follow the rules at an animal shelter where he spent some time.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110114/ap_on_re_us/us_congresswoman_shot     Security tight for Judge's funeral today.

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13844649

Doc 'actually confident' of congresswoman recovery
Posted: Jan 14, 2011 9:19 AM PST Updated: Jan 14, 2011 9:19 AM PST

TUCSON, AZ (AP) - The neurosurgeon treating Rep. Gabrielle Giffords says doctors are "actually confident" Friday she's making progress in her recovery.     

Dr. Michael Lemole says her eyes are opening more frequently and she can carry out more complex sequences of activity in response to commands and on her own.     

He says doctors couldn't have hoped for better improvement, given the severity of her wound.     

Giffords was shot in the head Saturday in an attack in Tucson that wounded 12 others and killed six people, including U.S. District Judge John Roll, whose funeral was Friday.     

Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, posted a message on Twitter Friday thanking people for the messages of support and said "GG," as he referred to her, was "improving each day."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011403871.html        Thank-you John McCain for being a gentleman and writing this article.

It is reminiscent of when during the election, someone in the crowd (sounded like an older woman) accused Obama of being a communist or something to that affect.  McCain very nicely set her straight.  McCain is a good man.

He really is a good man.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70D57Z20110114
Photos add bizarre twist to Tucson suspect's frantic last night
January 14, 2011

n a frantic final night before the Tucson shooting rampage, police said suspect Jared Lee Loughner checked into a motel, bought bullets for his semi-automatic and picked up photographs reported to show him posing in a G-string with his Glock pistol.

Loughner is accused of spraying a crowd with a semi-automatic pistol outside a Safeway grocery store last Saturday, killing six people and wounding 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition at a Tucson hospital.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department, which arrested Loughner, released a timeline of his final hours Friday, detailing how he checked into a Motel 6, bought ammo, and a diaper style-backpack at a local Walmart store, after dropping off a roll of 35 mm film at a Walgreens drugstore to be developed.

He collected the film several hours later, shortly before 2:30 a.m. The New York Times reported it contained "multiple photos" of the 22-year-old college dropout posing with a Glock 9 mm pistol next to his naked buttocks and dressed in a bright red G-string.

FBI sources told Reuters they could neither confirm nor deny the report.

The sheriff's department confirmed Friday that video from businesses near the shooting scene and the photographs are in FBI custody.

During the frantic last night, Loughner also shopped at two Circle K convenience stores and a Chevron gas station, all within a few miles of the scene of the shooting. He also posted a message on Myspace saying "Farewell friends."

He later was verbally warned for running a stoplight at 7:30 a.m., before returning home where he took a black bag out of his car and argued with his father, before fleeing on foot.

At 9:41 a.m., he took a cab up to the Safeway store, entering with the driver to get change shortly before 10 a.m. Ten minutes later, he pumped bullet after bullet into the crowd at a congressional meeting with Giffords.

He was wrestled to the ground by bystanders. A sheriff's deputy who detained him five minutes later found 30 rounds of ammunition, a knife and a plastic bag containing money in his pockets.

Pima County Sheriff's spokesman Jason Ogan said that police who detained him at the scene searched his pockets and found two 15-round magazines of ammunition, a 4-inch buck knife, a plastic bag containing money, a Visa card and Loughner's Arizona driver's license.

Ogan said Deputy Georgina Patino found Loughner's weapon on the ground and secured it before he was taken to a sheriff's station for booking.

Loughner is charged with five federal counts, including the murder of a federal judge and the attempted assassination of Giffords, who was shot through the head.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/14/AR2011011404927.html
Police: New timeline details Jared Loughner's actions before Tucson shooting
January 14, 2011

TUCSON - Suspected gunman Jared Lee Loughner bought a Glock 19 handgun and a box of ammunition on Nov. 30 and titled a post on his MySpace page "Goodbye Friends" on Saturday hours before the shooting spree that left six dead and wounded 13, according to a new timeline released by police.
The timeline provides details of what Pima County Sheriff's Office investigators believe were Loughner's actions leading up to the mass shooting outside a Tucson grocery store. Loughner faces federal murder charges in connection with the killings.

Loughner checked into a Motel 6 at 12:29 the morning of the shooting, then purchased a black diaper bag resembling a backpack and more ammunition later that day at a Super Walmart, police said.

A day earlier, he had dropped off a roll of film to be developed at a Walgreens, though it was unclear what the pictures depicted. The New York Times reported Friday that the photos show Loughner wearing a red g-string and holding a gun near his buttocks. The Pima Sheriff's office said the film from Walgreens had been turned over to the FBI and directed all calls to the federal authorities.

The timeline did not say where Loughner bought the gun and ammunition on Nov. 30. But the model of the weapon matches the model police said was used on the shooting, where he was apprehended with the gun, two extended magazine clips containing 31 rounds apiece, two more clips with 15 rounds apiece and a knife.

Authorities obtained the black diaper bag Thursday after it was found by a man walking his dog in the neighborhood where Loughner lived. The bag reportedly contained ammunition and receipts, which police said gave them an indication of his movements before the shooting.

According to the sheriff's office timeline: On the morning of the shooting, Loughner made purchases at a Circle K, other Walmart stores and a Chevron station. He was stopped by an officer with the Arizona Game and Fish Department at 7:30 a.m. for running a red light, and returned home sometime after he was released.
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He took the black diaper bag and was confronted by his father, Randy, before fleeing on foot. He then took a taxi to the strip mall where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was meeting with constituents. Loughner went inside the Safeway grocery store to get change for the cab ride at 9:54 a.m.

Sixteen minutes later, at 10:10 a.m., he opened fire on Giffords and the crowd, the report stated.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/tucson-shooting-timeline-pima.html
Posted at 4:09 PM ET, 01/14/2011
Tucson shooting timeline: Pima Sheriff's Office
By Washington Post editors

The Pima County, Ariz.,Sheriff's Office on Friday released this timeline for the actions it says led up to the mass shooting of 19 people on Saturday outside a Tucson grocery story. Jared Lee Loughner, the man identified by police as the gunman, is facing federal murder charges in connection with the incident. The sheriff's office says the times are approximate.

"11/30/2010: Jared Lee Loughner purchased a Glock Model 19, 9mm handgun with extended magazine and one box of ammo Winchester.

11:35 PM, 1/7/2011: Loughner drops off roll of 35mm film to be developed at Walgreens, 3800 W. Ina Road, Tucson, AZ

12:24 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner makes a purchase at Circle K Store #3400, 4900 W. Ina Road, Tucson, AZ, 85743.

12:29 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner checks into Motel 6, 4630 W. Ina Road, Tucson, AZ.

2:19 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner returns to Walgreens at 3800 W. Ina Road, Tucson, AZ to retrieve developed photos and makes a purchase

2:34 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner makes purchase at Chevron Store #95481, 7620 N. Hartman Rd, Tucson, AZ

4:12 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner posted bulletin on Myspace. Titled post "Goodbye friends" and contained a photo from Walgreens on website

6:12 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner makes purchase at Walmart Store #2922 at Foothills mall, 7635 N La Cholla Blvd., Tucson, AZ.

6:21 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner makes purchase at Circle K Store #08510 at 3712 W. Cortaro Farms Rd., Tucson, AZ

7:04 AM, 1/8/2011: Walmart Store #2922 at Foothills mall, 7635 N La Cholla Blvd., Tucson, AZ. Loughner attempted to purchase ammunition at Walmart

7:27 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner makes purchase for ammunition and a diaper bag (backpack style) at Super Walmart, 8280 N. Cortaro Road, Marana, AZ.

7:30 AM, 1/8/2011:AZ Game & Fish Department officer stops Loughner for running a red light at Cortaro Rd. and I-10.

Between 7:31 AM and 9:40 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner returned home, removed a black bag from the vehicle. His father confronted him and he fled on foot carrying the black bag.

9:41 AM, 1/8/2011: Cab driver picks up Loughner from Circle K at 3712 W. Cortaro Farms Road, Tucson, AZ and drives him to Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ.

9:54 AM, 1/8/2011: Cab driver and Loughner enter Safeway to get change for fare.

10:10 AM, 1/8/2011: Loughner opens fire. Nineteen people wounded: 6 fatalities, 13 injured.

10:11 AM, 1/8/2011: Pima County Sheriff's Department receives 911 call of shooting at Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ.

10:14 AM, 1/8/2011: First medical unit, Rural Metro Fire Rescue 76 (Paramedic Unit) dispatched to shooting at Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ

10:15 AM, 1/8/2011: Deputy Audetat is first deputy on scene and detains suspect

10:16 AM, 1/8/2011: Deputy Patino second on scene at Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ and secures weapon

10:19 AM, 1/8/2011: Medical personnel begin arriving on scene

10:31 AM, 1/8/2011: Southwest Ambulance, Paramedic 831 on scene at Safeway, 7100 N. Oracle Road, Tucson, AZ.

10:41 AM, 1/8/2011: Southwest Ambulance, Paramedic 831 transported Congresswoman Giffords to UMC

10:50 AM, 1/8/2011: Suspect transported to Foothills Substation, 7300 N. Shannon Road, Tucson, AZ.

6:59 PM, 1/8/2011: Warrant served at Loughner's parents' residence. 7700 block N. Soledad Ave."

http://www.kvoa.com/news/giffords-upgraded-to-serious-condition/

Giffords upgraded to serious condition

Posted: Jan 16, 2011 4:24 PM
Updated: Jan 16, 2011 4:25 PM



TUCSON - Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been upgraded to serious condition at University Medical Center.

In an emailed statement, UMC officials say Congresswoman Giffords is no longer on a ventilator and is breathing on her own.

On Saturday morning, a tracheotomy was performed on Congresswoman Giffords.

Two other patients injured in last Saturday's shooting are in good condition.

There will be a media briefing on Monday at 11 a.m. at UMC.

Stay with News-4 Tucson for further updates.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/husband-discusses-giffords-progress-in-interview/

Husband discusses Giffords' progress in interview

Posted: Jan 17, 2011 10:21 AM

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' husband says she's doing so well that she insisted on giving him a 10-minute neck massage from her hospital bed.

In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that will air Tuesday, astronaut Mark Kelly says the gesture shows that his wife is improving and that her spirit and their personal bond remain strong.

Kelly told Sawyer that he reminded Giffords she's in intensive care and needed her rest. But the act was typical for her to look out for others.

Kelly also said he would be willing to meet with the parents of suspect Jared Loughner, who is accused of trying to assassinate Giffords. The attack wounded her and 12 others and killed six.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_3589e426-229b-11e0-80e0-001cc4c03286.html

Giffords' grit will see her through, friends say

Tom Beal, Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Monday, January 17, 2011 5:34 pm

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ rides motorcycles and horses.

She runs and rollerblades.

She spent a semester in Spain as a teenager and later traveled through rural Mexico alone as a Fulbright scholar.

Her friends and colleagues are realistic about the difficulty of recovering from traumatic brain injury. They also are convinced that her physical fitness and mentally toughness will help her pull through.

“This is a person who has a relentless work ethic,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. “She lives, sleeps and breathes getting the job done. That applies to her job in Congress, in the campaign and now to her job of getting better.”

People need to recognize that Giffords has sustained a massive injury and has an arduous journey ahead of her, Wasserman Schultz said. But: “If there is anyone I know who can come back from an incident like this, it’s Gabby.”

In the week since Giffords was gravely wounded in an  attempted assassination, the entire community has  rejoiced at every hint of improvement — squeezing the hand of husband Mark Kelly, opening her eyes, dangling her legs over the bed in the intensive-care unit, breathing on her own.

Supporters have become accustomed to a “miracle every 48 hours,” said Michael McNulty, Giffords’ perennial campaign chairman.

.

“The rhetorical problem is that the doctors always say: ‘Given what she’s been through, she’s doing wonderfully.’ That’s kind of like saying ‘They’re going to China, and given that they have to walk, they’re doing great.’

“But I’ll say this — to the extent that prayer and good wishes can help people, she’ll be rollerblading by the 1st of March.”

Giffords’ friend and staffer Pam Simon, who is recovering from two gun shot wounds, said shortly after her release from the hospital that many elements of Giffords’ life story suggest she will battle back from whatever damage a  bullet caused when it traversed the left hemisphere of her brain.

Simon mentioned Giffords’ tireless commitment to representing her congressional district that includes nearly weekly “red-eye” flights to keep in touch with her constituents.

She cited her adventurousness.

“She’s just a plucky young woman,” Simon said.

When Giffords is in Tucson, she rollerblades regularly on the asphalt track around Reid Park, or runs or goes on long bicycle rides. Her friend Linda McNulty said she often meets her walking the steep dirt road up Tumamoc Hill.

She’s very fit, said friend Tom Zoellner, but her discipline and mental toughness may be even more remarkable.

She demonstrates her mental toughness every two years when she has to ask voters for her job, Zoellner said, particularly in the most recent election when the level of rhetoric reached fever pitch.

Giffords was born into a prominent Tucson family, the potential heir to a Tucson business, El Campo Tire, founded  in 1949 by her grandfather, Gif Giffords. Giffords was a fixture in Tucson’s business scene and so were the company’s “buck-stretcher” TV commercials.

Giffords started her career, reluctantly, in the family business in 1996 — the year she earned a master’s degree from Cornell University.

She had been on the track to success since her graduation from University High School in Tucson in 1988.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from Scripps College, a private woman’s college in Claremont, Calif., where she earned several scholastic honors and awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship to study Mennonite missions in Mexico. She received a master’s in regional planning from Cornell University in 1996.

She had taken a job in New York City with the accounting Firm Price Waterhouse.

“It seemed like the beginning of a grand and glittering adventure in the big city: posh apartments, pointy-toed shoes and maybe even my first martini,” she said in a 2009 commencement address at Scripps.

Then her father Spencer Giffords, whose longtime partner and business manager had retired, asked her to return home to run the family business.

Within months, Giffords,  then 27, had taken the reins as president and CEO of the firm, which had 11 outlets, 100 employees and $11 million in annual sales.

Four years later she oversaw the sale of the company to Goodyear Tire and made her first run for office in 2000, winning a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives.

A move to politics was no shock to those who knew Giffords well. Growing up, she had a reputation for being chatty and social. Her friends even predicted in a “Believe It or Not” section of her high school yearbook that she would be a “TV spokesperson.”

Those traits have served her well in the public arena.

Giffords is known for her accessibility. She almost always takes questions at public events. Her handlers know to schedule in “schmooze time” so she can meet people one-on-one.

In 2002, she became the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona Senate.

“People are so excited and energized by a young person who has new ideas and energy and is not stuck in a pattern of thinking because they haven’t been there long,” Giffords told the Star a few years later. “When a new person comes in, it’s like a child that declares the emperor has no clothes.”

Giffords was re-elected to the Senate in 2004.

She was given a 100 percent rating by the Sierra Club for her votes on environmental legislation and in true moderate fashion, crafted her arguments in economic form.

“For me, there’s a very strong link between having sound environmental policies and a sound economy,” she told the Star. “Quality of life issues, such as clean air, clean water and the availability of parks and open space, can be critical factors for companies contemplating moving to Arizona.”

She also began her career-long interest and support for science, sponsoring a bill that limited outside lighting to cut down on light pollution, again crafting it as an economic strategy on behalf of Arizona’s $100 million astronomy industry.

By 2005, she had earned a reputation for bipartisanship, hard work and accomplishment — not tomention cheerfulness.

In a session-ending editorial that year, the Star awarded her the title of “cheeriest legislator,” saying “cheery is just the opening: Giffords wins praise from people on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence, her diligence at research and the way she treats ‘state senator’ like a real job instead of a title.”

When Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe announced his plans to retire in 2005, Giffords was ready. She was among 11 candidates who lined up to claim the job.

The Republicans chose conservative Randy Graf, a former Arizona representative whose platform embraced one major theme: illegal immigration and its effects on Arizona’s border counties. The sprawling 9,000-square-mile 8th Congressional District runs for 114 miles along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a sometimes nasty primary against five other Democrats, Giffords fended off charges that she was a Republican in Democratic clothing.

In the general election, she staked out middle ground on the immigration debate, telling a voter in Bisbee:

“We need enforcement-plus. We need money for high-tech solutions, not low-tech, Vietnam-era solutions. We need to get tough on employers, and we need to make sure we have a guest-worker program so people can come in and work — legally, safely — and go home.”

Ads run on behalf of Graf by the Minuteman organization said “Giffords is a liberal extremist who supports Spanish ballots, amnesty and even citizenship for illegals.”

The moderate positions worked for Giffords against Graf in 2006 and again in 2008 against more moderate Steve Huffman.

In her first two terms in Congress, Giffords championed solar energy, scientific research and the space program.

“I love the job,” Giffords said in 2008. “It’s hard; It’s demanding in ways that you’d never know.”

In November of 2007 Giffords married Mark Kelly, a Navy captain and space shuttle astronaut.

Giffords and Kelly met in China while part of an exchange program with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in 2003. She was an Arizona legislator; he lived in Houston.

For their first date, the pair went on a warden-guided tour of the maximum-security Arizona State Prison in Florence.

They shared their first kiss at Club Congress, where they went to see a band.

The 2010 election was more contentious than earlier ones.

Republicans nominated Jesse Kelly, a Tea Party favorite who plugged into the anti-incumbent mood of the country.

Giffords was slammed by Kelly for her support of the president’s health-care legislation and the economic stimulus bills.

Town hall meetings on health care were contentious and at times rowdy. Giffords was “thunderously booed” the first time she told a group that the United States, “the greatest nation on Earth” was one of the few developed nations that did not guarantee health care for all its citizens, said C.J. Karamargin, Giffords’ communications director.

She did not drop the line from subsequent meetings, he said.

Giffords won re-election, just barely, her usual 10-point margin pared to a 1.4 percent victory over Kelly.

“I’m not elated to be in the minority,” she said as Republicans’ took control of the House this month, “but my job isn’t to be in the majority. It’s to do the work and I’m looking forward to doing that starting next week.”

Giffords continued to meet the public and, when re-elected, resumed her “Congress on your corner” meet-and-greet sessions.

She drove herself to the first meeting of the year at the Oracle and Ina Safeway on Sunday, January 9.

She has been in the intensive-care unit at University Medical Center ever since, husband Mark Kelly at her side.

Wasserman Schultz was one of three congresswomen present when Giffords opened her unbandaged right eye on Wednesday.

“As she was struggling to get her eyes open, you could see all the determination in  her face — willing her eyes open. It’s just really classic Gabby Giffords, this battling back,” Wasserman Schultz said Monday.

Reporter Veronica Cruz contributed to this story.

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(http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/klaasen3/2011Jan/Pretzer011811.jpg)

Clink on the link below just before 9pm ET to listen live:

http://scaredmonkeysradio.com/radio.m3u

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=13868815

Email: Rep. Giffords to fly to Houston for aggressive rehab
Posted: Jan 19, 2011 7:51 AM PST Updated: Jan 19, 2011 9:35 AM PST


TUCSON, AZ (KOLD) - Rep. Giffords will fly to Houston after being discharged from University Medical Center Friday, according to an email from Giffords' parents to CNN.

KOLD News 13 obtained a copy of that email. In the statement, Giffords' parents, Gloria and Spencer, share their gratitude for the "outpouring of love and prayers."

Thousands have responded with cards, flowers and food, the statement says. The police and federal marshals, plus other folks in the waiting room are eating 3 meals a day.

Rep. Giffords continues to demonstrate complex actions. Her parents shared a story of the congresswoman untying her husband's tie and unbuttoning his shirt after returning to UMC from a memorial service.

Giffords was looking at some cards grade schoolers had sent. Her eye was tracking the lines of written text. Her parents believe she was reading them.

The following is an email written by Rep. Giffords' parents, Gloria and Spencer:

The surgeons are ecstatic...Spence and I are humbled by the outpouring of love and prayers and overwhelmed with gratitude.

There are thousands of people who have responded with cards, flowers, FOOD (we're feeding all the cops and federal marshals in UMC 3 square meals a day as well as folks in two other patient waiting rooms....almost like the loaves and fishes).  The entire front lawn of the hospital as well as the perimeter of her congressional office in Tucson  is illuminated by thousands of candles, get well placards, hers and the other victim's photos,  prayers, stuffed animals, and people.

You can feel the energy.

Everyday Gabby improves and shows higher levels of comprehension and complex actions. Yesterday when Mark came back from speaking at her aide's memorial service, she reached up and untied his tie and undid the top button to his shirt.  (One of the nurses on the wing I was visiting with told me...'You know where this is goin'.') 

Last night she took his I pod and scrolled through all the pictures.  Early this morning she began to read cards made for her by some 4th graders! Her unbandaged eye tracked the lines, she opened the cards and turned them over reading the back. Mark's gotten pages of large print of Harry Potter's 1st book for her to hold and read (he's not read any of them so this should interesting).

Saturday in a 5 hour surgery they removed all the tubes from her mouth, did a tracheotomy (although she is breathing great on her own) and inserted a stomach tube for feeding.  Before surgery that morning she gave Mark a 20 minute back and neck rub.

They also placed a steel plate over her right eye where the optic bridge was crushed.  (The stitching is beautiful.)  Her eyes appear to be fine...no optic nerve damage they believe.  She came through with flying colors and all her neurological functions, temp., blood, etc.  normal. They have her sitting up in a chair.

She had minor surgery this AM to remove some bone particles that were working out through her scalp and to tidy up the incision on her forehead where the bullet entered.  She did well also.

They are even now having her move limbs on command.  So now comes the "true grit" part....and won't be a stroll in a park although Mark predicts she'll be up and walking around in 2 weeks.  The physical and occupational therapy will proceed side by side and it'll be stringent.

There is a team of medical specialists involved...including military surgeons who specialize in bullet wounds to the head.  They want to start aggressive rehab immediately and are flying her to Houston facilities Friday.  I'll go with her  along with Mark and Dr. Rhee and see where I fit into the rehab process, to get an apartment, returning in a couple days to finish up work here, and then back to Texas with Spencer for as long as it takes.

As she becomes more alert and her right eye gets un bandaged she'll begin to communicate more and when the trachea is removed, speak. You notice I'm speaking in the present tense...because that's where all your future prayers  are going to come in...Please help us realize that Gabby as an expression of God cannot be less than perfect and her healing complete.

Our love and appreciation - Gloria and Spencer

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/7392186.html
Donations pour in for Tucson shooting victims
January 21, 2011

More than $145,000 has been donated to two Tucson agencies on behalf of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of the Jan. 8 shootings.

The Arizona Daily Star reported Friday that donors have given more than $92,000 to the Community Food Bank and $53,000 to the American Red Cross.

A spokesman for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona says the money is going into a restricted fund. The food bank will wait until Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, tell them how to use the funds.

The shootings left six people dead and 13 wounded, including Giffords, who was moved Friday from a Tucson hospital to a rehabilitation center in Houston.

http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/Assassination_Case_Against_Loughner_Likely_To_Take_Years_114452384.html?ref=384
Assassination Case Against Loughner Likely To Take Years
As Jared Loughner prepares for his next day in court, legal experts anticipate that Monday is only the beginning of a lengthy legal proceeding.
January 23, 2011

As Jared Loughner prepares for his next day in court, legal experts anticipate that Monday is only the beginning of a lengthy legal proceeding.

Loughner, who stands accused of attempting to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will probably see his case go through several phases of the criminal justice system: prosecutions by federal and state authorities, proceedings over whether the case should be moved to a different venue, a possible insanity defense and a probable push for the death penalty. Experts say that the conclusion to Loughner’s legal journey is probably years away.

The case against Loughner is building, as investigators have analyzed items seized from Loughner’s home, conducted interviews of both witnesses and acquaintances of the suspect, and studied surveillance video from the Tucson Safeway where the January 7 shooting spree occurred.

Loughner will be in a Phoenix court on Monday afternoon for an arraignment, which is the formal reading in front of the defendant to inform him or her of the charges against them.

http://www.kvoa.com/news/nurses-bond-with-giffords/

Nurses bond with Giffords

Posted: Jan 24, 2011 4:02 PM
Updated: Jan 24, 2011 4:59 PM

TUCSON - One of the nurses who works in University Medical Center's Trauma ICU is invited to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday.

On Monday Tracy Culbert and four other Trauma ICU nurses talked to reporters about what it was like to treat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and other January 8th shooting victims.

Culbert says she's honored to be invited to Washington, D.C. But she's hoping for a greater reward.

Culbert says, "My biggest gift in nursing is when my patients come back and see me and they say thank you and we get to see them with their life and happy again."

All of the nurses say their patients' notoriety didn't matter to them.

Nurse Aubreena Beckel says, "We cared for these people exactly how we care for every other patient that comes in this hospital."

Still some say they made bonds with Giffords that they'll never forget.

For nurse Angelique Tadeo, it was music. She says, "She {Giffords} likes this one band that is not very common. A lot of people have never even heard of it. And it's one of my very favorites too. It was Mana, sort of a Mexican rock band that I just love and so does she apparently. So it was nice, I got to bring in a CD for her and we listened to it every night."

Culbert says she and Giffords shared love for their fathers.

Culbert says, "She {Giffords} grabbed my necklace and she started looking at my necklace. My dad passed away about three years ago and this {necklace} is a fingerprint impression of his thumb and I was telling her about it. And I started to get tears in my eyes. And she reached up and she was holding my arm and rubbing my arm. And she reached in to pull me forward to hug me. And I said Gabby you're going to make me cry. And she patted my back like it's okay, it's okay."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jared-loughner-20110125,0,2181209.story
Not guilty plea is entered for Jared Loughner in Tucson attacks
The suspect smiles through a court appearance in which he is arraigned on charges that he tried to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and two of her aides in the shooting rampage that killed six.
January 24, 2011

Reporting from Phoenix —

His hands and feet shackled, Jared Lee Loughner on Monday shuffled into the special proceedings courtroom in the federal courthouse here to answer charges that he tried to assassinate U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords during a shooting rampage that killed six.

He was beaming.

Loughner, 22, continued to flash an uncanny, self-satisfied grin throughout the otherwise routine nine-minute arraignment. He sat down and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He glanced at the domed room, normally used for naturalization ceremonies or other special events, and his smile got even broader. His attorney, Judy Clarke, whispered something to him. Loughner chortled.

Clarke asked U.S. District Court Judge Larry A. Burns to enter a plea for her client. Burns recorded Loughner as pleading not guilty. Loughner stared straight ahead and kept smiling.

A grand jury had indicted Loughner in the Jan. 8 shooting of Giffords and two of her aides at a Tucson shopping center. More charges are expected in the slayings of Gabriel Zimmerman, a Giffords staffer, and John M. Roll, the presiding judge of the federal courthouse in Tucson. Those charges could make Loughner eligible for the death penalty if he is convicted.

Monday's hearing was Loughner's second court appearance since the attack. In a mug shot released on the day of his prior appearance, he sported a shaved head and deep smile. Some of his hair has grown back since then. On Monday he wore glasses, an orange jumpsuit and canvas sneakers.

All Arizona judges have recused themselves from the case, so it is being heard by Judge Burns of San Diego. Legal observers expect the case to pivot on an insanity defense. Loughner left behind a trail of disjointed writings, and numerous friends and acquaintances have said they thought he was mentally unstable.

Burns asked Clarke if her client's state of mind enabled him to understand the charges and her job representing him. "We are not raising that issue at this time," said Clarke, a veteran capital-defense attorney who also represented Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph. Both escaped death and are serving life sentences.

Clarke said she did not object to a motion by federal prosecutors to move later hearings back to Tucson, although legal observers expect her to eventually try to have the trial moved out of state. Prosecutors said they have turned over to Clarke 45 discs worth of material taken from Loughner's computer and 250 interviews with witnesses.

Then Burns adjourned the hearing, and U.S. marshals led Loughner back to his cell.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/29/arizona-shooting-case-moves-tucson/
Arizona Shooting Case Moves to Tucson for Now
January 29, 2011

PHOENIX -- Prosecutors and defense lawyers have agreed that the federal case against the suspect in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will be held in Tucson, at least for now.

The case against Jared Lee Loughner was moved to Phoenix after federal judges in Tucson recused themselves because a fellow judge died in the attack.

Loughner was arraigned Monday in Phoenix. Prosecutors then requested the move so victims and witnesses would not have to drive there.

The deal doesn't prevent future requests for moves.
(snip)
His next court is set for March 9.

His trials will probably last longer than I will live . . . and I hope I am looking at 30 more years at least.
 :2thinky:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/space/7412991.html
Astronaut Kelly -- Giffords' husband -- will fly on shuttle
February 4, 2011

Astronaut Mark Kelly has decided to command the upcoming flight of space shuttle Endeavour, NASA announced Friday.

Kelly, the husband of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has been on personal leave for nearly a month to care for his wife, who was critically wounded in a Tucson, Ariz. shooting.
(snip)
The flight will be the next-to-last for the space shuttle program, and Endeavour will be making its final flight to space.

Launch is targeted for April 19.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/02/09/giffords.recovery/

Spokesman: Giffords recovering part of her ability to speak

(CNN) -- U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, recovering from a gunshot wound to the head sustained January 8, is regaining part of her ability to speak, her spokesman said Wednesday.

C.J. Karamargin would not divulge what Giffords has said, other than saying she asked for toast.

"It's very good news," he told CNN.

Giffords is at TIRR Memorial Hermann rehabilitation hospital in Houston. She was moved there late last month from University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, where she was taken after the shooting at a "Congress on Your Corner" event at a Tucson supermarket.

Six people were killed in the incident; Giffords was among 13 injured. Authorities have said they believe Giffords was targeted in the shooting. A 22-year-old suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, is facing federal charges.

Giffords' office said she actually spoke her first words before Wednesday morning, but has been speaking more since then.

"The reason for choosing this rehab facility is because of their track record," Karamargin said. "They are doing a fabulous job and working with her language and speech exercise and the physical therapy part of it."

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta called it "a very important development" for Giffords.

He noted that Giffords was able to follow commands just after the shooting. One of her doctors told CNN Giffords was able to squeeze his hand when he asked her to just after her arrival at the hospital.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/02/17/giffords-speaking-laughing/?test=latestnews

Giffords Speaking More, Laughing

Published February 17, 2011

| Associated Press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/05/giffords-shooting-death-penalty
Giffords shooting suspect may face death penalty

Six people were killed and 13 wounded; Giffords was shot through the head and remains in hospital in Houston
March 5, 2011

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7480696.html
Ariz. vet gives his Purple Heart coin to Giffords
March 19, 2011

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110324/us_yblog_thelookout/youngest-tucson-shooting-victim-to-be-memorialized-with-911-statue
Youngest Tucson shooting victim to be memorialized with 9/11 statue
March 24, 2011

Nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green will be memorialized with a nine-foot, eleven-inch statue made in part out of a steel beam from the World Trade Center. Green was born on Sept. 9, 2001, and was featured in the book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11.

Green was one of the six killed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' "Congress on Your Corner" event in January.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-gabrielle-giffords-050811-20110506,0,5377262.story
Video
CNN explores: How did Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survive shooting?
May 6, 2011

http://www.khou.com/home/Report-Gabrielle-Giffords-enjoys-night-out-in-Houston--121348114.html
Report: Gabrielle Giffords enjoys night out in Houston

HOUSTON – Gabrielle Giffords got a break from the rehab routine earlier this week and went on a date night with her husband, according to Culture Map.

The website reports Giffords was surrounded by security when she was wheeled into Grotto’s private wine room in the Galleria area.
 ::snipping2::

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=13608190
Endeavour Ready to Go; Giffords Arrives to Watch
May 15, 2011

With wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on hand to watch, the space shuttle Endeavour is poised to give the work week a roaring and historic start Monday morning, overcoming wiring problems that grounded it last month.

Giffords' arrival Sunday afternoon included a quick fly-by of Endeavour on the launch pad, ready to go.

"Gabrielle is excited for tomorrow's launch. Do you plan to see history in the making?" her staff tweeted:

NASA officials said conditions — from weather to technical issues — couldn't look much better for the scheduled 8:56 a.m. launch Monday.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/out-of-view-giffords-sees-husbands-shuttle-launch-1477880.html
Out of view Giffords sees husband's shuttle launch
May 16, 2011

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7569160.html
Surgeons to attach portion of skull to Giffords
May 17, 2011

Houston neurosurgeons Wednesday will restore a missing piece of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' skull that left nearly half of her brain exposed during four months of rehabilitation from a gunshot wound, sources told the Houston Chronicle Tuesday.

Dr. Dong Kim and a team at the Memorial Hermann Hospital System will install the piece, a key step in the congresswoman's recovery from a January assassination attempt. The procedure will come four months after Arizona doctors removed part of her skull to relieve pressure that would have caused greater damage to her swelling brain.
 ::snipping2::
During the 1½- to 2-hour procedure, surgeons will attach a plastic computer-generated implant — Giffords' own skull piece was contaminated by the shooting — with small titanium screws and plates. The piece will cover most of the left side of her head, currently covered by only skin and hair.

Over the coming months, new bone will grow into the piece.

Although she often wore a helmet to protect it, Giffords' brain was visibly swollen and vulnerable for much of her time at TIRR Memorial Hermann, the system's elite rehabilitation facility. It had gone down significantly enough recently that she could make trips outside, including in recent weeks to Johnson Space Center multiple times, dinner gatherings and twice to Florida.

The surgery will come two days after Giffords returned from watching her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, command the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.khou.com/news/Loughner-found-incompetent-to-stand-trial-in-Giffords-shooting-122609839.html
Loughner found incompetent to stand trial in Giffords shooting
May 25, 2011

TUCSON, Ariz. -- The man accused of wounding U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and killing six is mentally incompetent to stand trial, a judge ruled Wednesday after U.S. Marshals dragged the man out of the courtroom because of an angry outburst.

As survivors of the deadly January attack looked on, Jared Lee Loughner lowered his head, raised it and said what sounded like "Thank you for the freak show. She died in front of me." His words were loud but mumbled, and it wasn’t clear who he was talking about. He wore a khaki prison suit and sported bushy, reddish sideburns.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns’ decision means the 22-year-old will be sent to a federal facility for up to four months, to see if he can improve to the point where he understands the case against him.

The ruling came after two mental health professionals said they concluded Loughner suffers from schizophrenia and is mentally unfit for trial.
 ::snipping2::
Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 federal charges stemming from the Jan. 8 shooting at a meet-and-greet event that wounded Giffords and 12 others and killed six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge.
 ::snipping2::

She looks beautiful!  Look at that smile!
(http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/HEALTH/06/12/giffords.photos/t1larg.giffords.ofgg.jpg)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/12/giffords.photos/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn (http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/12/giffords.photos/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn)

Giffords to begin outpatient therapy
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 12, 2011 9:03 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will leave her rehabilitation facility and begin outpatient therapy by the end of June, her spokesman said Sunday.

She will depart TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston and remain in Texas for therapy, C.J. Karmargin said.

News of the milestone in Giffords' recovery came as the public saw the first photos of her face since she was shot in the head in January.

Taken outside, the photos show her smiling. She has short hair and is wearing glasses. One photo shows her alone, smiling at the camera; in the other, she is sitting alongside another woman.

The photos, published Sunday on her Facebook page, were taken May 17 -- the day before she underwent skull surgery at TIRR Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, according to a message alongside the photos.


 ::snipping2::

http://www.khou.com/

Breaking News
Giffords released from TIRR

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been released from Houston's TIRR, according to her staff. We'll have more details as they become available.
 ::MonkeyDance::

Thanks for the update.  This is great news.  She looked good in the recent photos released too. 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-23-loughner-tucson-shooting-suspect_n.htm
Documents: Loughner crying, pacing in prison cell
July 23, 2011

PHOENIX (AP) — Tucson shooting rampage suspect Jared Lee Loughner was put on a 24-hour suicide watch this month at a federal prison in Missouri after he asked a staff psychologist to kill him, federal prosecutors said in newly released court documents
A 24-page filing by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tucson also said prison staff report that Loughner has been pacing in circles near his cell door, screaming loudly, crying for hours at a time and claiming to hear messages from a radio.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday night denied an emergency motion by defense lawyers to keep prison officials from forcibly medicating Loughner with a psychotropic drug.
 ::snipping2::
Mental health experts have determined Loughner suffers from schizophrenia and are trying to make him psychologically fit to stand trial. Federal prosecutors claim Loughner should remain medicated because he may be a danger to himself and his mental and physical condition was rapidly deteriorating.

Loughner was forcibly medicated between June 21 and July 1 after prison officials determined his outbursts there posed a danger to others. He was given twice daily doses of Risperidone, a drug used for people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe behavior problems.

Prison officials stopped doing that on July 2 after the 9th Circuit granted his lawyers' request for a temporary stay of involuntary medication.
While being examined on July 8, Loughner said he was depressed, felt hopeless and "reported that the radio was talking to him and inserting thoughts into his mind," a staff psychologist said in the prosecutors' new filing.

Loughner was then put on suicide watch and prison staff said he displayed "bizarre" and "hyper sexed behavior" from July 8-12 along with an "inability to cope with grief, stress and severe anxiety."
 ::snipping2::
Records show the prison's medical and psychology staff feared Loughner's condition could worsen without immediate care and resumed medicating him on Tuesday.

Loughner's attorneys argued that his due-process rights were being violated and filed an emergency motion Thursday with the 9th Circuit, asking that the forced medication be stopped until his appeal is resolved.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.kvue.com/news/Giffords-now-knows-who-died-in-shooting-128119188.html
Giffords now knows who died in shooting
August 20, 2011

 A spokesman for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords says the Arizona congresswoman is aware of who was killed during the January shooting rampage in Tucson that left her seriously wounded.

The Arizona Republic reports that C.J. Karamargin confirmed Friday that the Democratic politician was told in late July the names of the dead, including aide Gabe Zimmerman, U.S. District Judge John Roll, and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44296880/ns/us_news/#.TljkzWG8sng
Arizona shooting suspect's condition worsens
August 27, 2011

SAN DIEGO — The man accused in the Arizona shooting rampage kept himself awake for 50 hours straight after an appeals court stopped forced medication. He walked in circles until he developed sores and then declined antibiotics to treat an infected foot. Already thin, he stopped eating and shed nine pounds.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns described Jared Lee Loughner's behavior to explain his refusal to overrule prison doctors who decided to resume forced medication July 18. The drugging, he said, "seems entirely appropriate and reasonable to me."

Loughner's attorneys argued unsuccessfully that a court should review whether the forcible medications could resume.

The ruling came in a three-hour pretrial hearing Friday that offered insights into Loughner's fragile condition at federal prison in Springfield, Mo., where he is on suicide watch.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/22/us-shooting-loughner-idUSTRE78L0GX20110922
Accused Tucson shooter, lawyers at odds over hearing
September 21, 2011

 ::snipping2::
Loughner, 23, was declared in May to be mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges he killed six people and wounded 13 others including Arizona Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in January.

U.S. District Court Judge Larry Burns has ordered Loughner to attend a hearing at federal court in Tucson next Wednesday to determine if prison doctors should be given more time to make him mentally fit to stand trial.

The differences between Loughner and his attorneys emerged in the transcript of a hearing Burns held earlier in the week.

Christina Pietz, a clinical psychologist treating Loughner at a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, testified that Loughner wanted to attend the September 28 hearing in his home town to be able to see his family.
 ::snipping2::
Loughner's attorney, Judy Clarke, meanwhile, argued that attendance at the hearing posed an "unnecessary risk" to her client, who is on suicide watch at the hospital in Springfield, and had been described as "gravely disabled."

Following the hearing, Burns ruled that Loughner must attend the hearing in Tucson on Wednesday that was set to decide on the extension prosecutors said was needed to restore his mental competency.

Prosecutors want another eight months to continue treating Loughner, who has been diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia. Loughner's defense team opposes any such extension.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpps/news/accused-tucson-shooter-jared-loughner-appears-in-court-dpgonc-20110928-to_15241875
Accused Tucson Shooter Jared Loughner Appears in Court for First Time Since May
September 28, 2011

(NewsCore) - The accused shooter in the January gun attack in Tucson that left six people dead and seriously wounded US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was in court Wednesday for the first time since May as a judge continued to weigh whether he is competent to stand trial.
 ::snipping2::
At issue is whether Loughner, 23, should be committed to the US Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., for an additional eight months in order for his mental condition to improve enough to stand trial. He faces 49 criminal counts for the shooting that killed six people and wounded 13.

Burns originally declared Loughner incompetent to stand trial and sent him to the Springfield, Mo., hospital in May following an in-court outburst by the defendant.

Dr. Christina Pietz, who has been meeting daily with Loughner since April, took the stand Wednesday to say she believed he could be rehabilitated in approximately eight months. She also said he had shown considerable improvement in communicating with her since a court allowed him to be forcibly medicated for his schizophrenia diagnosis.

Before being medicated, Loughner believed he had killed Giffords, Pietz said. She said he now knows that Giffords is alive and feels remorse about the people he killed.

Pietz also said Loughner no longer hears voices and understood the nature of Wednesday's competency hearing.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/09/28/20110928loughner-mental-competency-hearing-tucson-brk28-ON.html
Loughner's detention extended for four more months
September 29, 2011

TUCSON - A federal judge ordered Jared Loughner to undergo four more months of mental-health treatment, saying it was possible for Loughner, the defendant in the Jan. 8 shooting rampage that left six dead, to be restored to mental competency and stand trial.

Loughner, 23, sat silently through a 7 1/2-hour hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court, staring blankly ahead as his attorneys and experts discussed his ongoing treatment for schizophrenia. Loughner's expressionless look was a side effect of the drugs he has received for the past 60 days, according to testimony by experts.
More...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-23/Giffords-therapy/50884744/1
Giffords heads to N.C. for intensive therapy
October 23, 2011

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., left Houston on Sunday for Asheville, N.C., where she will undergo two weeks of intensive therapy.
Giffords has been working with the therapist for several months already at TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital in Houston, where she is re-learning to walk and talk after she was shot in the head in a mass shooting in the parking lot of a Safeway store near Tucson on Jan. 8.

 ::snipping2::
Earlier this week, The Arizona Republic reported that Giffords reads aloud the final chapter in the audio edition of the memoir she penned with her husband, allowing people for the first time to hear for themselves how she is recovering.

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope is scheduled for release Nov. 15.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Giffords_Returns_To_Texas_After_Two_Weeks_Of_Therapy_133294453.html
Giffords Returns To Texas After Two Weeks Of Therapy
November 5, 2011

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has returned to Texas after two-weeks of therapy as she continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

TUCSON, Ariz. (November 5, 2011)--U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., has competed two weeks of intensive therapy sessions in North Carolina as she continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

Giffords' office said the congresswoman returned to Houston Friday evening and will return to the intensive rehabilitation program at TIRR Memorial Hermann's outpatient facility.


Her staff says the trip to Asheville, N.C., was strictly rehabilitation-related and had been planned for several months, but no other specifics on her therapy were disclosed.

Staffers say Giffords arrived in North Carolina on Oct. 23 and began therapy sessions the following day.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57324738/giffords-wont-return-to-congress-til-better/
Giffords: Won't return to Congress until "better"
November 14, 2011

Did anyone watch the interview with her and her husband last night? She has been through so much! She has a wonderful husband..their's is quite a love story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-11-20/jared-loughner-life-revealed/51324480/1
Details of Loughner's life emerge from testimony, file
November 20, 2011

This is awesome!

Some helpful information about aphasia
http://scaredmonkeys.net/index.php?topic=12443.new#new

http://www.khou.com/news/Killing-of-bin-Laden-voted-top-news-story-of-2011-135791848.html
Killing of bin Laden voted top news story of 2011
December 17, 2011

NEW YORK -- The killing of Osama bin Laden during a raid by Navy SEALs on his hideout in Pakistan was the top news story of 2011, followed by Japan’s earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster, according to The Associated Press’ annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.
 ::snipping2::

(Voted #10 of top 10 news stories for 2011)
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS SHOT: The popular third-term congresswoman from Arizona suffered a severe brain injury when she and 18 other people were shot by a gunman as she met with constituents outside a Tucson supermarket in January. Six people died, and Giffords’ painstaking recovery is still in progress.

http://www.khou.com/news/Giffords-survivors-to-commemorate-mass-shooting-in-Tucson-one-year-later-136398343.html
Gabrielle Giffords, survivors to commemorate mass shooting in Tucson
December 29, 2011

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/05/us-shooting-tucson-anniversary-idUSTRE80420Q20120105
Victims still healing a year after Tucson shooting
By Tim Gaynor and Brad Poole
January 5, 2012

 ::snipping2::
Sunday marks a year since a gunman fired a semi-automatic pistol into a crowd gathered at Giffords's "Congress on Your Corner" event last January 8, killing six people and wounding 13 others.
 ::snipping2::
Giffords plans to attend the candlelit vigil in Tucson on Sunday with her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, although it remains unclear if she will seek to resume her political career and run for re-election in November.

Loughner was found mentally incompetent to stand trial at a hearing in May and is being treated at a federal prison hospital in Missouri.
More...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/06/us-shooting-arizona-loughner-idUSTRE80525J20120106
Legal road ahead uncertain for accused Tucson shooter
By David Schwartz
January 6, 2012

http://www.foxnews.com/

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., announces she has "more work to do" on her recovery after an assassination attempt and will resign from her congressional seat this week

I know it's likely for the best, but I feel bad about this.  Was hoping she could stay on. 

ITA.   ::rhino::

Awesome video from Gabby's website

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/From-the-Wires/2012/0125/Gabrielle-Giffords-resigns-today-with-standing-ovation
Gabrielle Giffords resigns today with standing ovation
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has resigned from the House, to focus on her recovery, with a standing ovation from her colleagues.
By Donna Cassata, Associated Press
January 25, 2012

(http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2012/0125-gabrielle-giffords-resigns/11564052-1-eng-US/0125-Gabrielle-Giffords-resigns_full_380.jpg)

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/10/navy-names-ship-after-gabrielle-giffords/
Navy names ship after Gabrielle Giffords
By Justin Fishel 
February 10, 2012

In a teary-eyed ceremony Friday, the U.S. Navy honored the former congresswoman from Arizona by adding her name to its latest littoral combat ship, USS Gabrielle Giffords.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, his voice cracking, proudly made the announcement in front of a large crowd of Navy officials in the Pentagon courtyard. Friends, family and colleagues of Giffords were also in attendance, including her husband, Mark Kelly, and Roxanna Green, mother of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, who was one of six killed in the same tragic shooting incident that left Giffords badly wounded in January 2011. Mabus announced that Roxanna will be the ship’s “sponsor” and that her initials will be welded into the keel.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-17/jared-loughner-trial-psychologist-notes/53135718/1
Prosecutors allowed access to Loughner notes
February 17, 2012

The judge in the Tucson mass shooting case has ruled that prosecutors can have access to notes made by Jared Loughner's prison psychologist over the course of her evaluations of his mental health.
The suspected shooter is undergoing restoration to competency at a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., and his lawyer asked that federal prosecutors be denied access to the psychologist's notes because of self-incriminating statements Loughner made during sessions with psychologist Christina Pietz.

But U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, presiding in San Diego, reasoned in a ruling Thursday that federal law allows the prosecution to view the notes because they have to do with competency, not guilt or innocence. The incriminating statements would not be allowed in trial, he wrote.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.khou.com/news/Giffords-Kelly-attend-San-Luis-Salute-139645043.html
Giffords, Kelly attend San Luis Salute
by T.J. Aulds / The Daily News
February 19, 2012

GALVESTON, Texas — There were plenty of dignitaries at The San Luis Salute Ball at the Galveston Island Convention Center on Friday night, but the big, big ovation went to retired NASA shuttle commander Mark Kelly and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords.

More than a year ago, Giffords was battling for her life after being shot in the head by a gunman while attending a congressional event in Tucson, Ariz.

While the recovery has a way to go, Giffords has been attending more public events.

Kelly and Giffords — along with Kelly’s twin brother, Scott — have been regular fixtures at The San Luis Salute. The ball contributes $100,000 to University of Texas Medical Branch departments each year.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/05/us-loughner-ruling-idUSTRE8241I420120305
Accused Tucson shooter loses appeal over forced
By Dan Levine/SAN FRANCISCO
March 5, 2012

(Reuters) - Prison doctors may continue to forcibly medicate the man charged with the deadly Tucson shooting spree last year that gravely wounded then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords as they seek to restore his fitness for trial, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower-court ruling that extended Jared Loughner's stay at the federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, and permitted staff there to administer anti-psychotic drugs to him against his will.

"It is clear that Loughner has a severe mental illness, that he represents a danger to himself or others, and that the prescribed medication is appropriate and in his medical interest," Judge Jay Bybee wrote in the appeals court's 117-page majority opinion.

Bybee also said evidence supports the lower-court's finding that there is a "substantial probability that Loughner will be restored to competency in the foreseeable future."
More...

http://ktar.com/6/1529191/Voters-to-pick-from-4-seeking-8th-District-GOP-nod
Voters to pick from 4 seeking 8th District GOP nod
April 17, 2012

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57450052/gabby-giffords-attends-campaign-concert-in-tucson/
Gabby Giffords attends campaign concert in Tucson
June 10, 2012

(CBS/AP) TUSCON - Gabrielle Giffords only spoke a few words on Saturday night, but her many supporters who came to a get-out-the-vote rally and concert at the Rialto Theater say that was enough to make their night.

Giffords made an appearance at Ron Barber's campaign concert and thanked her supporters, reports CBS Affiliate KOLD.

It was her first public appearance in Tucson since she stepped down from office in January. Giffords relinquished her seat to concentrate on her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head.

Many supporters couldn't wait to see Giffords and find out about her recovery since the January 8, 2011 shooting.

Jeannine Burton said Giffords holds a very special place in her heart and was a unique congresswoman.

"She really spent the time doing things, like that 'Congresswoman on the corner' events, where she really allowed constituents to come up randomly about things that were going on in their personal lives," said Burton.

Giffords declined a one-on-one interview.

Voters are deciding in Tuesday's special election on whom shall complete the remainder of Giffords' term: a former Giffords aide, the Democrat Barber, who was injured in the January 2011 shooting rampage outside a Tucson grocery store that killed six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge, and wounded 11 others; or Republican Jesse Kelly, who narrowly lost to Giffords in 2010.

Holding onto the seat is crucial for Democrats seeking to regain control of the House.
 ::snipping2::

I'm curious as to whether the drugs are able to bring Jared Loughner to a sane, reasoning state?  I remember that he doesn't want to take the drugs but do they help make him competent?

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/05/22/20120522arizona-jared-oughner-case-hearing-feds.html
Motion suggests Loughner still not mentally fit to stand trial
May 22, 2012

Jared Loughner, the defendant in last year's mass shooting near Tucson, will not likely be coming back to Tucson when his current treatment for restoration to competency ends at the end of the month, suggesting that Loughner is still mentally unable to stand trial.
 ::snipping2::
A report on his progress toward competency was due Thursday, but a joint motion by prosecutors and defense attorneys filed Tuesday asks U.S. District Judge Larry Burns for an order to keep Loughner in Missouri for his "best medical interests."

They also asked for a status hearing June 27, 20 days after his current restoration stint is to end, to discuss his competency.

Under federal law, a defendant can be kept in restoration only for a "reasonable" time. If Loughner cannot be restored to mental competency, he could be committed to a mental institution.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/hearing-set-in-tucson-shooting-rampage-case/article_8b45e788-a5bd-11e1-8315-001a4bcf887a.html
Hearing set in Tucson shooting rampage case
May 24, 2012

A judge has set a June 27 hearing to consider whether the Tucson shooting rampage suspect is mentally fit to stand trial.

Jared Lee Loughner is being treated at a Missouri prison facility where he has been forcibly medicated with psychotropic drugs for about 10 months in a bid to make him mentally fit.

His stay in Missouri is set to end June 7, but U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ordered that Loughner will remain there pending further notice.
 ::snipping2::
Burns had ruled in the past that Loughner isn’t ready for trial, but believed Loughner can eventually be made mentally fit.

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/18616552/new-competency-hearing-set-for-tucson-shooter
New competency hearing set for Tucson shooter
May 24, 2012

TUCSON, Ariz. -- A federal judge on Thursday scheduled a new competency hearing late next month for Jared Loughner, who allegedly gravely wounded former US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six in a mass shooting last year.

US District Judge Larry Burns will preside over a hearing June 27 to determine if Loughner's psychiatric treatment has restored him to the legal standard of competency in order to stand trial on 49 charges, including first-degree murder.

Burns originally declared Loughner, a diagnosed schizophrenic, not fit to stand trial in May 2011 and ordered that he be held in federal custody to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Loughner, 23, is currently receiving psychiatric care, including court-approved forced medication, at a federal prison hospital in Missouri.

Burns last declared Loughner incompetent to stand trial in February and ordered him to be held at the federal prison hospital for four more months upon the recommendation of his prison psychologist.

But the psychologist, Christina Pietz, said Loughner had made "measurable progress" and said she believed "his mental state will continue to improve."

Pietz is due to submit another report to Burns Thursday, but it is not expected to be made public.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.kpho.com/story/18690842/loughners-stay-in-mo-to-officially-end-thursday
Loughner's stay in MO to officially end Thursday
June 4, 2012

PHOENIX (AP) -

The Tucson shooting rampage suspect's stay at a Missouri prison facility where he's undergoing psychological treatment is set to officially end Thursday.

It's unknown when 23-year-old Jared Lee Loughner will be moved to Tucson for a June 27 hearing over whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns ordered that Loughner will remain in Missouri pending further notice.
 ::snipping2::
Loughner has spent more than a year at the Missouri facility.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2012/06/04/20120604court-will-not-review-loughner-medication-decision.html
Court will not review Loughner medication decision
June 5, 2012

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied a request by lawyers for Jared Loughner, the defendant in last year's mass shooting near Tucson, to reconsider its ruling about forcible medication
 ::snipping2::
Loughner's restoration is scheduled to end Thursday. He has a competency hearing on June 27 in Tucson, but the judge, prosecutors and defense agree Loughner cannot be released from the hospital.

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_central_southern_az/tucson/tucson-shooters-rehearing-denied
Jared Lee Loughner's medication hearing denied
June 6, 2012

TUCSON, AZ - The suspect in a January 2011 shooting in Tucson will continue to receive forced medication.

Judges John Wallace and Jay Bybee voted to deny a request by Jared Lee Loughner's attorneys to reconsider a ruling about the medication on Tuesday.
 ::snipping2::
Loughner has been held at a Missouri prison hospital since March 2012, where he's been forcibly medicated with psychotropic drugs to make him mentally fit.

The deadline for the psychologist treating him to submit a report on the efforts to make Loughner mentally fit to stand trial is Thursday, June 7.

I have sat in court hearings for patients with mental illness that are going before the Judge to be released from involuntary commitment and have been surprised to see some released that are clearly not stable.  The Judge bases their ability to function in the community on their baseline.  So what I am getting at is Jared's baseline may be low functioning.  The meds can only do so much.  I personally think he is a very very sick individual and medication may get him better but not at a level that he can participate fully in this trial.  That is just what I know of him through the news and so on.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/jared-loughner-hearing-pushed-back-to-august/article_7673d478-b440-11e1-b5fe-001a4bcf887a.html
Jared Loughner hearing pushed back to August
June 11, 2012

A status hearing on the competency of the shooter in the Jan. 8, 2011 Tucson rampage has been pushed back until early August.

The trial court judge on the case had set a June 27 hearing in Tucson to consider whether Jared Lee Loughner is mentally fit to stand trial.

But attorneys from both sides said they need more time to prepare and U.S. District Judge Larry Burns rescheduled Loughner’s status hearing to Aug. 7.

Burns also ordered Monday that Loughner will remain in custody at a Missouri prison facility where he’s undergoing treatment.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-usa-shooting-loughner-idUSBRE85B1IJ20120612
Accused Tucson shooter's competency hearing rescheduled
June 12, 2012

Reuters) - A federal judge on Tuesday postponed until August 7 a competency hearing for the man accused of killing six people and wounding ex-congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others in a mass shooting at a public event last year.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/politics/rep-giffords-aide-wins-her-seat-in-special-election/2012/06/13/
Rep. Giffords’ Aide Wins her Seat in Special Election
June 13, 2012

on Barber, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, won her seat in a special election.

Barber, who decided to run after Giffords formerly resigned her seat earlier this year to recover from a shooting in January 2011, defeated Jesse Kelly, a Republican who suffered a narrow defeat to Giffords in the 2010 election for the swing district in Arizona.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-loughner-guilty-plea-20120804,0,4006905.story
Jared Loughner to plead guilty in Tucson shooting, sources say
Mental health officials reportedly believe he is now competent to understand the charges in the killing of six people and wounding of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others in Tucson last year.
August 4, 2012


WASHINGTON — Jared Lee Loughner is set to plead guilty Tuesday in the shooting attack that severely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, according to knowledgeable sources, as mental health officials believe he is now competent to understand the charges against him in the assault, which killed six people and injured 13 at a gathering with the congresswoman’s constituents in Tucson.

At the hearing Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court in Tucson, psychiatric experts who have examined Loughner, 23, are scheduled to testify that they have concluded that despite wide swings in his mental capacity, at this time he comprehends what happened and acknowledges the gravity of the charges, according to two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case was still unfolding.

The terms of the plea arrangement remained unclear Saturday on whether Loughner would admit guilt to all or some of the charges in return for a lengthy prison sentence rather than risk a potential death penalty verdict at trial.
 ::snipping2::

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CONGRESSWOMAN_SHOT_SUSPECT?SITE=KVUE&SECTION=DEFAULT&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT.html
AP source: Loughner would get life in shooting
August 4, 2012

PHOENIX (AP) -- A possible plea deal in the deadly Tucson shootings that wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords would send Jared Lee Loughner to prison for the rest of his life, a person familiar with the case said Saturday.
A court-appointed psychiatrist will testify Tuesday that Loughner is competent to enter a plea in the shooting rampage that killed six people and injured 13, including Giffords, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A status conference in the federal case had already been scheduled for Tuesday in Tucson.
The person, speaking about upcoming events in the case, said the plan is for Loughner to enter a guilty plea in the murders and attempted murders. The plan is contingent on the judge in the case allowing Loughner to enter the plea.
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier Saturday that Loughner was set to change his plea.
The Pima County attorney's office, which has said it could also pursue state prosecution of Loughner, declined to comment, said spokeswoman Isabel Burruel Smutzer.
 ::snipping2::

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/04/13123082-jared-lee-loughner-wants-to-plead-guilty-in-gabrielle-giffords-attack-sources-say?lite
Jared Lee Loughner wants to plead guilty in Gabrielle Giffords attack, sources say
August 5, 2012

Video at Link

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57488383/accused-tucson-shooter-mentally-fit-pleads-guilty/
Accused Tucson shooter mentally fit, pleads guilty
August 7, 2012

(CBS/AP) TUCSON, Ariz. - Jared Lee Loughner pleaded guilty Tuesday to going on a shooting rampage at a political gathering, killing six people and wounding his intended target, then-Congresswoman Gabriele Giffords, and 12 others.

Loughner's plea spares him the death penalty and came soon after a federal judge found that months of forcibly medicating him to treat his schizophrenia had made the 23-year-old college dropout competent to understand the gravity of the charges and assist in his defense.

Under the plea, he will be sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole.

The outcome was welcomed by some victims, including Giffords herself, as a way to avoid a lengthy, possibly traumatic trial and years of legal wrangling over a death sentence.
More...

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/19252301/loughner-returned-to-missouri-until-sentencing
Loughner returned to Missouri until sentencing
August 10, 2012

PHOENIX (AP) - The man who pleaded guilty in the Arizona mass shooting that wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has returned to the Missouri federal prison where he is being treated for a mental illness.

U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Chris DeRosa says Jared Lee Loughner left Tucson on Friday and is at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo.

DeRosa says he will remain there until his sentencing Nov. 15.
 ::snipping2::

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/giffords-moving-back-to-tucson-after-spending-year-and-half-in-texas-undergoing-therapy/2012/08/12/d4966ab6-e4e7-11e1-9739-eef99c5fb285_story.html
Gabrielle Giffords, husband moving back to Tucson
August 12, 2012

TUCSON, Ariz. — Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband are moving back to Tucson on Sunday, a year and a half after she moved to Houston to undergo intensive physical and speech therapy after she was wounded by a gunman at an event outside a grocery store.

Giffords’ husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, told the Arizona Daily Star (http://bit.ly/NqMY9P (http://bit.ly/NqMY9P)) that his wife will continue therapy in Tucson but says it’s not going to be the six to eight hours per day she’d been doing in Houston.
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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/09/space-shuttle-endeavour-gabrielle-giffords-mark-kelly-watch-shuttle-fly-over-tucson/
Space Shuttle Endeavour: Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly Watch It Fly Over Tucson
September 20, 2012

The space shuttle Endeavour arrived in California today after taking a detour over Tucson as former astronaut Mark Kelly and wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, watched from a rooftop at the University of Arizona.

“That’s my spaceship,” said Kelly, Endeavour’s last commander, according to The Associated Press.

Kelly asked Wednesday that Endeavour make a detour and fly over Tucson, so that Giffords could see it one last time.

The last-minute suggestion was a bit of a surprise to NASA, but it put out a statement saying it would honor Kelly’s request.

“As part of the delivery of Endeavour to Los Angeles, Endeavour will be flown over the city of Tucson,” said the agency.  “NASA decided to honor that request to pay our respects to a long-time agency supporter in former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Kelly, who commanded Endeavour’s final mission, STS-134. The flight over Tucson will add no additional time or cost to the delivery of Endeavour.”
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/08/loughner-sentencing-tucson-shooting-giffords/1691239/
Loughner to be sentenced in Tucson mass shooting
Jared Loughner, who pleaded guilty in the shooting that left six people dead and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others, will be sentenced today in Arizona.
November 8, 2012

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On Thursday, Loughner, now 24, will be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Tucson. Under terms of the plea agreement hammered out by prosecutors and defense attorneys in August, Loughner will spend the rest of his life in prison, and given his fragile mental state, most likely in a federal prison psychiatric ward.

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys are forthcoming with the details of the hearing, nor with the case in general.

Sentencing hearings usually provide a chance for victims to speak, and Giffords and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, are expected to attend. Kelly is expected to address the court on her behalf.

Loughner and his parents and friends will also have a chance to address the court.

Afterward, John Leonardo, U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, has indicated he and some of the victims of the shooting will hold a news conference.

Earlier this year in federal court, Loughner pleaded guilty to two counts of murder of a federal employee and four counts of causing the death of a person at a federally sponsored event.
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Thursday's sentencing brings the federal case to a close.

However, Loughner could still be tried for murder and other crimes in Arizona state court. Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall has not yet said whether she will exercise that option.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57547155/giffords-faces-loughner-as-husband-lauds-her-spirit/
Giffords faces Loughner as husband lauds her "spirit"
November 8, 2012

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/11/08/7-life-sentences-for-giffords-shooter/
7 Life sentences for Giffords' shooter
November 8, 2012

The confessed gunman in the January 2011 mass shooting here that left 6 dead and 13 wounded, incluiding then-Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was sentenced to seven life terms plus 140 years in prison without possibility of parole.

The sentence imposed on Jared Lee Loughner, presiding Judge Larry Burns said, has a "symbolic character," since it is intended to reflect the damage caused to all the victims of the massacre.

Loughner pleaded guilty in August in exchange for prosecutors' agreement not to seek the death penalty.

Each of the life sentences corresponds to one of the fatalities in the shooting as well as for the assassination attempt on Giffords, who was Loughner's target on Jan. 8, 2011.
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Diagnosed with schizophrenia in the wake of his arrest, Loughner was declared fit to stand trial after being forcibly medicated.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/27/17488529-loughners-parents-hid-shotgun-from-him-slew-of-new-documents-show?lite
Loughner's parents hid shotgun from him, slew of new documents show
March 27, 2013

Jared Loughner hadn't been the same since he got fired from a job at a mall in Tucson, his parents said. He had been expelled from college. After a visit from campus police, his parents decided to hide a shotgun that Loughner owned in the trunk of their car in the garage so he didn't have access to it in the house.
A slew of details about Loughner, 24 -- who has pleaded guilty to killing six people and wounding former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and a dozen others in a Jan. 8, 2011, shooting spree in Tucson -- emerged as authorities investigating the rampage released more than 2,700 pages of documents that they have compiled.
Among the thousands of interviews, police reports and survivors' statements released Wednesday, one theme was constant about Loughner, who has since been diagnosed with schizophrenia: As his father, Randy Loughner, told investigators at the time, he "just doesn't seem right lately."
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/27/gabby-giffords-shooting-records/2024589/
Ariz. sheriff releases records from Giffords' shooting
March 27, 2013

Judge had withheld reports in the investigation from the public for 2 years.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2013/0327/Gabrielle-Giffords-shooting-newly-released-records-portray-killer-as-lost
Gabrielle Giffords shooting: newly released records portray killer as 'lost'
March 27, 2013

Some official documents about the shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by Jared Loughner were kept sealed so as not jeopardize a fair trial. They show that many close to Loughner were disturbed by his behavior before the attack.
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http://www.myfoxhouston.com/story/29311632/navy-ship-christened-for-giffords-wounded-in-2011-shooting
Navy ship christened for Giffords, wounded in 2011 shooting
June 13, 2015

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords of Arizona had a Navy vessel named in her honor during a ceremony at a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard Saturday afternoon.

Giffords joined others including Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, as the USS Gabrielle Giffords was christened in coastal Alabama. The 419-foot ship was built at the Austal shipyard and is the Navy's 10th littoral combat ship designed to operate in shallow waters near the coast.

Giffords was badly wounded in a 2011 shooting that left six dead and 13 injured in Tucson. The Democrat left Congress and later founded an organization that supports gun control.
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