US law enforcement officials were yesterday seeking a second man in connection with Saturday’s assassination attempt on a congresswoman in a suburban shopping centre in Tuscon, Arizona. Six people died and 14 others were wounded in the shooting rampage which has shocked the US.
Jared Lee Loughner (22), the man arrested at the scene after he was wrestled to the ground, was yesterday charged on five counts, including attempted assassination.
Among the wounded were congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (40) who was meeting her constituents at a “Congress on Your Corner” event outside a Safeway supermarket.
Doctors yesterday said they were “very, very encouraged” by her ability to respond to commands such as squeezing a hand or showing two fingers. A bullet pierced the left side of her brain.
The dead included chief judge John Roll (63), of the US district court for Arizona, who had stopped by to say hello to Ms Giffords after attending Mass.
Much attention has focused on Christina Taylor Green, a nine-year-old schoolgirl who was recently elected to the student council and wanted to meet Ms Giffords because she was interested in politics. Ms Green was born on September 11th, 2001. Also killed was Gabe Zimmerman (30), who was engaged to be married and who was responsible for “community outreach” on Giffords’s staff.
The gunman used a 9mm Glock Model 19 handgun with an extended magazine.
The suspect was wrestled to the ground during a break in the shooting when the gunman was trying to reload his weapon. Those who apprehended him included a man who was already bleeding from the head and an older woman.
The Pima county sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, said: “There’s reason to believe this individual may have a mental issue.”
Loughner had posted rambling messages against government “mind control” and illiteracy on the internet, and had a “kind of a troubled past”, Sheriff Dupnik said. He had been rejected by the US army and quit college after repeatedly disrupting classes.
A parking lot video camera captured the image of a middle-aged white man with dark hair. Witnesses said they had seen him with Loughner at the scene of the massacre. Police called him a “person of interest” and asked anyone who had seen him to contact law enforcement officials. One witness said he saw the unidentified man running away from the site.
The shooting rampage raised questions about the charged political atmosphere, which may have influenced the gunman. Ms Giffords, a moderate Democrat, was re-elected to a third term in November after a nasty campaign which focused on healthcare and immigration, two of the most contentious issues in the US. Her district office was vandalised last March, after she voted for Mr Obama’s healthcare Bill.
“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,” Sheriff Dupnik told a news conference. “Unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital; we have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
John Boehner, the new speaker of the house, announced that flags would fly at half-mast around the capitol, as a mark of respect for the victims, and a vote on repealing the healthcare Bill would be postponed.
Several Democratic officials yesterday reproached former Alaska governor Sarah Palin for having called for Ms Giffords’s defeat in last year’s mid-term elections. Ms Palin included Giffords on a map of the US with rifle crosshairs marking the targeted districts of 20 Democratic representatives.