Shooting rampage suspect may not have acted alone – sheriff

TUCSON, Arizona – Law enforcement officials believe US congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was the intended target of an armed attack in Arizona early today.

“I don’t have information about whether she was the first person shot, but yes, I believe she was the target,” Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said at a news conference.


The sheriff said Giffords was shot once in the head, and 18 other people were shot. He said the rampage ended only after two people tackled the gunman.

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” the sheriff said. “And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

Doctors were optimistic about Giffords surviving as she was responding to commands from doctors despite having a bullet go through her head.

“With guarded optimism, I hope she will survive, but this is a very devastating wound,” said Dr.

Richard Carmona, the former surgeon general who lives in Tucson.

Six people, including US District Judge John Roll, an aide to Congresswoman Giffords and a nine-year-old girl, are dead.

Dupnik also said at the conference that the suspect who police have in custody may not have acted alone.

He said officials believed the suspect may have come to the grocery store parking lot where the shooting took place with another person, and that person was in some way involved.

Suspect identified

The suspect in custody was described as mentally unstable and earlier identified by people familiar with the investigation as Jared Loughner, 22.

US officials who provided his name to the AP spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to release it publicly.

Federal law enforcement officials were poring over captured versions of a MySpace page that belonged to Loughner and over YouTube videos published weeks ago under the account “Classitup10” and linked to him.

The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by US officials, included a mysterious “Goodbye friends” message published hours before the shooting and exhorted his friends to “Please don’t be mad at me”.

In one of several YouTube videos, which featured text against a dark background, Loughner described inventing a new US currency and complained about the illiteracy rate among people living in Giffords’ congressional district in Arizona.

Two spellings of his last name were given in the aftermath of the shooting – Loughner and Laughner.

“I know who’s listening: Government Officials, and the People,” Loughner 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].”

The suspect’s exact motivation was not clear, but a former classmate described Laugher as a pot-smoking loner who had rambling beliefs about the world. The Army said he tried to enlist in December 2008 but was rejected for reasons the military did not provide.

US President Barack Obama earlier held a nationally televised news conference to express his condolences.

The shooting cast a pall over the Capitol as politicians of all stripes denounced the shooting as a horrific act of violence.

Capitol police asked members of Congress to step up security in the wake of the shooting, and some politicians expressed hope that the killing spree would serve as a wake-up call at a time when the political climate has become so emotionally charged.

“I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and members of her staff,” newly elected House Speaker John Boehner said.

“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. Our prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her staff, all who were injured, and their families. This is a sad day for our country.”

Who is Gabrielle Giffords?

Giffords, 40, is a three-term moderate Democrat who narrowly won re-election in November against a tea party candidate as conservatives across the country sought to throw her from office over her support of the health care law.

She was first elected to Congress amid a wave of Democratic victories in the 2006 election, and she won a narrow victory against a favorite of the ultraconservative tea party movement in the 2010 election.

She has been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate in 2012 and gubernatorial prospect in 2014.

Giffords is married to astronaut Mark E. Kelly, who has piloted space shuttles Endeavour and Discovery. The two met in China in 2003 while they were serving on a committee there, and were married in January 2007.

Senator Bill Nelson, chairman of the Senate Commerce Space and Science Subcommittee, said Kelly was training to be the commander of the next space shuttle mission, slated for April.

His brother is currently serving aboard the International Space Station, Nelson said.

Giffords, known as “Gabby” in Arizona, tweeted shortly before the shooting, describing her “Congress on Your Corner” event: “My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later.”

“It’s not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always does, listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbours,” Obama said.

“That is the essence of what our democracy is about.”

Giffords has drawn the ire of the right in the last year, especially from politicians like former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, over her support of Obama’s health care reform bill.

Her Tucson office was vandalised a few hours after the House voted to approve the health care law in March, with someone either kicking or shooting out a glass door and window.

In an interview after the vandalism, Giffords referred to the animosity against her by conservatives.

Palin listed Giffords’ seat as one of the top “targets” in the November elections because of the lawmakers’ support for the health care law.

“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realise that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords said in an interview with MSNBC.

In the hours after the shooting, Palin issued a statement in which she expressed her “sincere condolences” to the family of Giffords and the other victims.

Neighbourhood rocked by shooting

Law enforcement officials and reporters from around the country descended on Tucson, the second biggest city in the state and home to the University of Arizona.

The scene has been converted into a command post with a dozen or so emergency vehicles and agents in FBI jackets milling about the location.

The shooting occurred at a shopping centre called La Toscana Village that is home to a Beyond Bread bakery, a Jenny Craig diet centre, a nail salon and the Safeway grocery store near the scene of the crime.

Outside Giffords’ office on Capitol Hill, a handful of congressional staffers could be seen walking into her office without comment, some with roller bags and one who was in tears.

About a half a dozen yellow flowers placed by one person sat outside the door.

In Loughner’s middle-class neighbourhood – about a five-minute drive from the scene – sheriff’s deputies had much of the street blocked off as curious neighbours asked what was going on.

The neighbourhood sits just off a bustling Tucson street and is lined with desert landscaping and palm trees.

Neighbours said Loughner kept to himself but that they often saw him walking his dog, almost always wearing a hooded sweatshirt listening to his iPod. Neighbours said Loughner lived with his parents.

“We’re getting out of here. We are freaked out,” 33-year-old David Cleveland, who lives a few doors down from Loughner’s house, told The Associated Press.

Cleveland said he was taking his wife and children, aged 5 and 7, to her parent’s home when they heard about the shooting.

“When we heard about it we just got sick to our stomachs,” Cleveland said.

“We just wanted to hold our kids tight.”

Caroline LaPer, who lives only a few blocks from the crime scene and was walking her golden retriever past the store on Saturday afternoon, was looking out her window earlier in the day when she saw helicopters circling above.

Then her husband called from a home show in downtown Tucson to say “There’s been a shooting at Safeway. Don’t go anywhere.”

“It’s just devastating. It’s numbing. It’s disheartening,” said Caroline LaPer, who didn’t witness the shooting.

“What is going on in this world?”

The shooting comes amid a highly charged political environment that has seen several dangerous threats against lawmakers but nothing that reached the point of actual violence.

A San Francisco man upset with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s support of health care reform pleaded guilty to threatening the Democratic congresswoman and her family, calling her directly on March 25 and threatening to destroy her Northern California home if she voted for health care reform.

In July, a California man known for his anger over left-leaning politics engaged in a shootout with highway patrol officers after planning an attack on the American Civil Liberties Union and another non-profit group.

The man said he wanted to “start a revolution” by killing people at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation.

During the his campaign effort to unseat Giffords in November, Republican challenger Jesse Kelly held a fundraiser where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle.

Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

“I don’t see the connection,” between the fundraisers featuring weapons and Saturday’s shooting, said John Ellinwood, Kelly’s spokesman.

“I don’t know this person, we cannot find any records that he was associated with the campaign in any way. I just don’t see the connection.

“Arizona is a state where people are firearms owners – this was just a deranged individual,” Ellinwood said.

Giffords is known in her southern Arizona district for her numerous public outreach meetings, which she admitted in an October interview with The Associated Press can sometimes be challenging.

“You know, the crazies on all sides, the people who come out, the planet earth people,” she said following an appearance with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Tucson where Mullen was questioned by a woman who wanted the military to start “building cities instead of destroying them”.

“I’m glad this just doesn’t happen to me.”

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