Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was at a public event at a grocery store when a gunman ran up and shot her in the head. Three of her staff members were also shot according to early reports. Lots of confusion, sounds like a lot of other victims.
She’s a Democrat representing the 8th District.
Oh, look at that.
That’s terrible, I hope everyone is ok.
The shooter is in custody, and the sheriff told CNN that they’ve got at least three helicopters medavacing victims.
A Sprint Store employee said he saw at least two bodies.
NPR reported her dead.
Damn. I wonder how much of this we’ll see running up to the 2012 election. I shudder to think…
NPR is also saying that the gunman was described as late teens early 20s. I’m just glad he was taken alive so we can find out the motivation behind the fucker’s actions.
Let him rot in a small cell for the next 6 or 7 decades of his worthless life.
Gawker talked to an eyewitness:
We spoke to an eyewitness, Steven Rayle, who was on the scene at the time of the shooting and helped to hold the suspect down while waiting for police. Here’s what he said:
The event was very informal: Gifford had set up a table outside the Safeway and about 20-30 people were gathered to talk to her. The gunman, who may have come from inside the Safeway, walked up and shot Gifford in the head first. According to Rayle, who is a former ER doctor, Gifford was able to move her hands after being shot.
After shooting Gifford, the gunman opened fire indiscriminately for a few seconds, firing 20-30 rounds and hitting a number of people, including a kid no older than 10 years old. Rayle hid behind a concrete pole and pretended to be dead. When the gunman apparently ran out of ammunition he attempted to flee, but a member of Gifford’s staff tackled him. Rayle helped hold the gunman down while waiting for the sheriff to arrive, about 15-to-20 minutes later. The EMS came about 30 minutes later. Rayle said he was “stunned” by how long it took medical help to arrive.
The gunman was young, mid-to-late 20s, white, clean-shaven with short hair and wearing dark clothing and said nothing during the shooting or while being held down, although he struggled at first. He didn’t look like a businessman, but more of a “fringe character,” Rayle said. The sheriff’s department arrived, arrested the gunman and cordoned off the parking lot.
The hospital is reporting multiple fatalities. And local sources, NPR, and congressional sources are all saying the congresswoman has died.
Is this the first since 1981?
Operating under the assumption that this was a political assassination, anyway.
We shouldn’t assume anything right now. Let’s figure out what happened and then start jumping to conclusions.
Yah, MSNBC says 6 dead + the congresswoman for 7. Goddammnit.
EDIT: Oops.
Just so there’s some content here, one of the local DNC people says the shooter was calling out people’s names as he shot them. Which is odd.
The Congresswoman being shot point blank in the head first before the rest of the shooting is a pretty fair indicator of assassination at this point.
Pretty sure professionals are working on that right now, leaving us free to speculate randomly all we want.
Or, you know, bring up possible historical context.
How often do we have potential political assassinations in America that we should ignore that possibility until we “figure out what happened”?
Even on the chance that the shooter’s actions weren’t motivated by politics, the image Frank Austin linked to earlier is disturbing. This whole thing makes me feel ill.
Reports are one of the dead is a child.
That fuckin’ poster. This country suffers fools too easily.
