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From the Los Angeles Times

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Crowd members took gunman down

Two men tackled the shooter and a woman took away his ammunition clip before kneeling on him. Authorities also credit a staff member for helping the wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

by Sam Quinones and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times

January 9, 2011

Reporting from Tucson

Patricia Maisch watched a gunman shoot a woman who was using her own body to shield her teenage daughter.

"I thought: 'I'm next. I'm next to her. He's going to shoot me. I'm next,' " she said in an interview Sunday.

But two men tackled the gunman when he stopped to reload, and Maisch, 61, restrained his hand as he reached for an ammunition clip, helping stop the attack in a Tucson shopping center that killed six people and wounded 14, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Maisch did not get a good look at the gunman's face as she struggled with him. "I was too busy in the outcome, that things not go any further," she said.

Maisch arrived at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event about 9:30 a.m. Saturday because she wanted to thank the three-term representative for voting for the economic stimulus package.

Maisch, who co-owns a heating and cooling company in Tucson with her husband, said the bill gave her incentives of up to $1,500 for each high-efficiency air-conditioning unit she installed, allowing her to expand and hire two employees.

"I think [Giffords] is a brilliant person. I think she's very level-headed, a centrist," she said.

Maisch said she was fourth or fifth in line waiting to speak to Giffords. She went into the nearby Safeway to buy a banana and water. When she came out, she was 25th, Maisch estimated.

Standing in line, Maisch heard a pop. "I'm not a gun person, but it sounded like a gunshot," she said.

She considered running but decided that would make her a target, and instead dropped to the ground.

The attacker, whom authorities said was Jared Lee Loughner, fired a series of shots and began moving down the line of people who had been waiting for Giffords. He paused to reload after shooting the woman directly in front of Maisch.

"She was shot at least two times, once in the back and once in the arm," Maisch said.

Two men tackled the gunman, and they fell close to Maisch. She saw the shooter reach into his pants pocket for another ammunition clip, and she grabbed his hand. Then she knelt on his ankles to help subdue him.

"He said, 'You're hurting me' or something to that effect," said Maisch, a petite, gray-haired woman who served blueberry tea during an interview at her Tucson home, decorated with African ceramics.

Maisch, originally from St. Louis, moved to Arizona in 1983 for the climate, she said.

Maisch said she never found out the names of the men who tackled the gunman, but she saw that one was bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound in the back of his head.

She returned to the Safeway to get paper towels to make a compress for the man, who was eventually treated by paramedics.

"I'm lucky I had to go into the store for a banana or I would've been" shot, said Maisch, who was not injured.

Maisch said she agreed with Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, who has railed against what he believes is a poisonous political climate in Arizona that has contributed to violence. "I think he is right about the far right inciting people," Maisch said.

The wounded tackler was apparently Bill Badger, 74, who was about 40 feet away when the gunman began firing. Badger was grazed by a bullet in the back of his head.

Badger said another man slammed a folding metal chair into the shooter's head, knocking him to the ground. Badger, a retired Army colonel, put his knee on the gunman's arm and held his neck and rear to keep him pinned down.

"It was natural to not let this guy shoot any more people," Badger said in a phone interview.

Badger remained on top of the gunman until sheriffs arrived. Then his nerves kicked in.

"I stood up and my knees were shaking," he said.

Badger, who works out three times a week but said, "I've lost a lot of muscle," was treated at a hospital and released.

Pima County sheriff's officials said Roger Salzgeber and Joseph Zamudio also helped subdue Loughner. Zamudio could not be reached for comment Sunday.

"Gabby was my friend," Salzgeber said in a brief interview in front of his northwest Tucson home.

Authorities also singled out Daniel Hernandez Jr., one of Giffords' interns, for his efforts during the shooting.

Hernandez, 20, a junior at the University of Arizona majoring in political science, had joined Giffords' office last Monday and was working at Saturday's event.

After shots were fired, Hernandez, who was certified as a nursing assistant in high school, checked on several victims before seeing Giffords slumped, contorted, on the floor.

He put her head in an upright position against his chest and applied pressure to her wound to stanch the bleeding. He also asked Giffords questions, wanting to know whether she understood that help was on the way, and she would respond by squeezing his hand.

"My job came to be trying to make sure she knew there was someone there with her," he said.

Dupnik said he was grateful for citizens' interventions. "It's a possibility we might have double the victims we have now" if they had not acted, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-heroes-20110110,0,1848736,print.story

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Jared Loughner charged in Tucson shooting rampage

Authorities say Loughner carefully plotted to attack Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, though a motive remains unclear.

by Sam Quinones and Scott Kraft, Los Angeles Times

January 10, 2011

Reporting from Tucson

Piece by piece, details of the weekend rampage in Tucson are beginning to emerge: the heartbreaking tales of people slain on a sun-splashed morning, the courage of those who overpowered the gunman, and the state of mind of the suspect himself, a young man who authorities say had plotted for weeks, and perhaps longer, to assassinate a member of Congress.

As the full scope of the tragedy sank in Sunday, it also had rekindled a national conversation, sparked by the outspoken sheriff of Pima County, about the role that an environment of partisan and vitriolic political discourse played — or did not play — in the shootings.

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, was formally charged Sunday with two federal counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of U.S. District Judge John M. Roll and an aide to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and three counts of attempted murder, of Giffords and two other aides who were injured.

Law enforcement officials said Loughner appeared to have prepared his attack on Giffords with some care. The Democratic congresswoman had just begun one of her Congress on Your Corner public events outside a grocery store near his home when the shooting began.

Loughner had purchased a 9-millimeter Glock semiautomatic pistol at a Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson five weeks ago, and investigators who searched his home over the weekend said they found, hidden in a safe, two key pieces of evidence — a letter from Giffords thanking Loughner for attending one of her Congress on Your Corner events in August 2007 and an envelope that bore the handwritten phrases "I planned ahead" and "My assassination," the name "Giffords" and what appeared to be Loughner's signature.

Roll, the chief federal judge in Arizona, lived nearby and had come to the event to thank Giffords and one of her aides for helping "resolve issues related to the volume of cases in the district of Arizona," according to an FBI affidavit filed with the charges.

Authorities said Loughner fired 31 bullets from the weapon, hitting at least 20 people. When he paused to reload, he was tackled by two men attending the event, authorities said.

The chaos of those early minutes was captured in a wrenching series of 911 calls released Sunday. In one of them, a man at the scene said Giffords had been hit but was still breathing, and there were "multiple people shot." At that point, the 911 operator dropped her professional composure, uttering to herself, "Oh my God."

The first sheriff's deputy arrived on the scene three minutes after the initial 911 call.

Giffords remained in critical condition late Sunday, doctors said, but they saw her ability to respond to simple commands as a hopeful sign for her recovery. She was on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma, but she was being wakened periodically for examinations. They said the timing of the attack was, in one way, fortuitous, because it came during a shift change at the hospital and two trauma teams were available.

Dr. Peter Rhee, one of Giffords' doctors, said she was doing well but it would be some time before doctors could say whether she was likely to make a full recovery. The next major milestone, he said, would be to determine whether she can breathe on her own, and that was a week or two away.

"She's obviously not going to die … unless she gets a catastrophic complication," he added. "I'm very encouraged at this time."

Meanwhile, the investigative focus was on Loughner, who remained in custody but was saying little during questioning. Authorities said Sunday that they now thought he acted alone.

A "person of interest" in the case, an older man who had been seen with Loughner before the shooting, was identified Sunday as a taxi driver who had taken the suspect to the site.

The driver and Loughner were seen together on video surveillance tapes in the Safeway supermarket, but sheriff's officials said they apparently had gone there because Loughner needed to get change to pay the fare. The taxi driver was questioned and is not considered a suspect.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said Sunday that while it was premature to discuss motives for the attack, "it appears the target was the congresswoman." The director called the shootings "an attack on our institutions and an attack on our way of life."

In a series of disjointed YouTube slide shows Loughner posted in recent weeks, he had railed about government mind control and brainwashing through grammar, proposed a new world currency and complained about illiterate people and "federalist" and "treasonous" laws.

Some suggest that Loughner's remarks about grammar may have been inspired by the teachings of David Wynn Miller, a far-right activist in Milwaukee who has argued that the government uses grammar to control people. Reached by Politico.com on Sunday, Miller said he agreed with Loughner that the government is brainwashing people by controlling grammar but said any suggestion that his writings inspired the shootings is "ridiculous."

Loughner lived with his parents in a working-class neighborhood about a 10-minute drive from the scene of the shooting. He had dropped out of a Tucson high school after his junior year and attended classes last year at Pima Community College.

He was involved in five "classroom and library disruptions" that were handled by campus police and was suspended in September after posting a video on YouTube claiming that the college was "illegal" under the U.S. Constitution.

A letter explaining the decision was delivered to his home by campus police, the school said. Later, in a meeting with campus officials, Loughner withdrew from the school. A YouTube user who appears to be Loughner posted a video in November saying the school was a "torture facility" and its teachers "con artists."

Several students who attended classes there with Loughner said he made them nervous because he often made inappropriate comments.

"He just creeped me out," said Amy Jensen, who took an advanced poetry class with Loughner in the fall but dropped it after three weeks, in part because of him. She said his behavior had created a "chemistry of uneasiness" in the class.

The shootings touched off nationwide debate and lit up the blogosphere, where some argue that the angry tone of political dialogue in the country, and particularly on the airwaves, might have inspired the attack. Others contend that mental illness was the only driving force.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, a key figure in the investigation and a personal friend of both Giffords and Roll, said at a news conference that the level of vitriol, particularly on radio and television, could have contributed to Loughner's delusions. He said the lax gun laws in Arizona were part of the problem as well.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) took issue with Dupnik's remarks in a Sunday appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I didn't really think that that had any part in a law enforcement briefing," he said.

Dupnik hasn't identified any of the broadcast figures who he thinks have contributed to the charged atmosphere. But in a tense exchange with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly on Sunday, Dupnik criticized people "who get up in front of a camera … and say things that are not true to try to inflame the public. I think it's time we take a look at it."

Kelly, noting that the sheriff was a Democrat, suggested it was "irresponsible" of him to speculate about the gunman's sources of inspiration.

"It is irresponsible of us not to address this kind of behavior," Dupnik replied.

"Is it the place of a sheriff to stir the pot?" Kelly asked.

"I guess that's for the listeners to decide," Dupnik said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-20110110,0,1371785,print.story

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Tucson shootings: Mental illness, not rhetoric, at root of more political assassinations historically

It's tempting in the angry aftermath of deadly moments such as Saturday's shooting of 20 people in Tucson to seize on any convenient, seemingly credible explanation for the inexplicable. How could someone so young take it upon himself to lash out lethally to kill six innocent people and wound 14 others, all presumably unknown to him, on a sunny Saturday by a grocery ironically named Safeway?

At his initial news conference Saturday, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik could not offer much specific information about the incident, including the accused's name or motive.

However, the 74-year-old sheriff was somehow repeatedly certain the incident had something to do with overheated political rhetoric in his state and in America today, where grown-ups in public life call each other liars and hostage-takers. While others employ even more vicious vitriol hiding behind the convenient anonymity of the Internet.

While that theory may gain broad traction, at least in these initial days, a look back at prominent assassinations and attempts in U.S. history finds far different common patterns -- more personal or ....

Arizona has been a politically conservative state for generations. But anyone studying the writings and videos of the accused, Jared Lee Loughner, is hard-pressed to find any coherence, let alone a political one either way.

Friends on Twitter said Loughner was "left-wing" and "a pothead." Loughner claimed to admire both the "Communist Manifesto" and "Mein Kampf." Before his expulsion from college, classmates said he was given to unprovoked outbursts in class.

His writing of conscious dreaming is gibberish. His lonely video of a U.S. flag-burning in the desert is amateurish, showing a young male in a hoodie, garbage bag and mask shuffling about like a senior citizen. The Army rejected him. Someone who could likely use some treatment, but one problem with these awful incidents is that, in hindsight, most involve mental cases. However, obviously not all mental cases take such deadly action.

The sheriff has declared that his friend Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was the target, although her name does not appear in the rantings so far uncovered. A former Republican, Giffords was considered a Blue Dog Democrat, one who voted in favor of President Obama's healthcare legislation yet against Nancy Pelosi as her party's leader for the 112th Congress.

The shooter attacked Giffords first. But then why fire nearly 18 more times? Unless the goal was to make a murderous media splash using Gifford and numerous other deaths as the guaranteed ignition point to finally be noticed, even if notoriously. Loughner's friends also call him a loner, five letters that come up consistently in American history.

Jan. 30, 1835: Richard Lawrence aims two flintlock pistols at President Andrew Jackson. They misfire. A former general, Jackson proceeds to beat the would-be assassin senseless with the presidential cane. Lawrence was confined to a mental institution for the rest of his life.

April 14, 1865: Abraham Lincoln . John Wilkes Booth . Sic semper tyrannis . (See Civil War).

July 2, 1881: Having written a speech supporting the successful election of James Garfield , Charles Guiteau felt he deserved a job in the new administration, although said speech was never actually given.

His job application was repeatedly rebuffed, so Guiteau heard the call to execute the ungrateful chief executive. Garfield succumbed to infections 11 weeks after the shooting. Guiteau succumbed to hanging the next summer.

Sept. 6, 1901: President William McKinley was attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo when Leon Czolgosz , an anarchist who had been tracking the president's movements, caught up with him. He shot him twice.

McKinley died eight days later from surgical complications. Czolgosz, who refused to cooperate with his attorney, was convicted and, justice being somewhat swifter in the early 1900s, was electrocuted the next month.

Oct. 13, 1912: Former President Theodore Roosevelt was again seeking the White House when his famed verbosity saved a life -- his. In Milwaukee, a saloon keeper named John Schrank pumped a .38-caliber bullet into the politician's body. However, TR's folded 50-page speech and metal eyeglass case slowed the projectile. Roosevelt insisted on finishing his address.

Then, recalling McKinley's deadly surgical complications that brought TR into office, opted to live with the bullet in his body the remaining years of his life, which ended in 1919. Schrank, who claimed McKinley's ghost had ordered the assassination, was institutionalized until his death in 1943.

Feb. 15, 1933: In Miami, Democrat President-elect Franklin Roosevelt was talking with Mayor Anton Cermak (left in earlier photo above), a Bohemian immigrant who was the political architect of the Chicago Democratic machine now run by the brother of new Obama White House chief of staff, William Daley .

Also in the waterfront crowd that day was another immigrant, Giuseppe Zangara , who hated all kinds of politicians, especially prominent ones, and had reportedly tracked outgoing Republican President Herbert Hoover . Zangara got off several shots while, as on Saturday, being subdued by crowd members. The bullets hit Cermak and four others. Cermak died in a hospital bed in March; Zangara the same month but in an electric chair.

Roosevelt was the presumed target, although some noted that the death of a prominent political foe like Cermak did not exactly hurt the business of Chicago mobster Al Capone.

Nov. 1, 1950: An attempted assassination of President Harry Truman by two Puerto Rican independence advocates fails but takes the lives of two White House guards.

March 1, 1954: Four more Puerto Rican independence activists open up from the House gallery during debate on an immigration bill. Five representatives are wounded. The shooters receive 70-year sentences, but are released in 1979 by President Carter in apparent exchange for Cuba's Fidel Castro freeing some captured CIA agents.

Nov. 22, 1963: President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas. The accused, Lee Harvey Oswald , himself assassinated by Jack Ruby, also now dead.

June 5, 1968: Aggrieved over Robert Kennedy's support for Israel, Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan shoots and kills the campaigning New York senator in a kitchen pantry of Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel.

May 15, 1972: Arthur Bremer grew up in a dysfunctional Milwaukee household where he pretended to live in a TV family with no verbal or physical abuse. He had no friends, changed jobs frequently. After a 1971 arrest for carrying a concealed weapon, he is declared mentally ill but sane and undergoes some weeks of therapy.

Early in 1972 he tells his diary he will shoot either Richard Nixon or George Wallace "to do something bold and dramatic" to make "a statement of my manhood for the world to see."

After studying Sirhan's story and tracking Wallace for weeks, Bremer accomplishes that in Maryland, as last Saturday, at a political appearance in a shopping center.

Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down. A jury rejected Bremer's insanity defense. He got 63 years, reduced to 53, was released after 35 and is on parole until 2025.

1975: At least two attempts on President Ford' s life, both by women and both in Northern California. Lynette Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore . Fromme, a member of the notorious Manson family, and Moore, who later said she'd been "blinded" by radical political beliefs, both received life sentences. However, both have been released, Moore in 2007 and Fromme in 2009.

March 31, 1980: John Hinckley had become obsessed first with the violent movie, "Taxi Driver," the story of a would-be presidential assassin based on the story of Bremer's attempted Wallace killing. Hinckley also fixated on an actress in that film, Jodie Foster .

Rejected and despite treatment for mental illness, Hinckley devised several bizarre plots to gain her attention, including an airplane hijacking and committing suicide in front of her, before settling on a presidential murder.

He trailed Democrat Carter and then shot newly-installed Republican President Reagan , among others, at the side door to the Washington Hilton. Hinckley remains institutionalized. And you may have noticed since that gloomy D.C. day, there are no more videos of presidents entering or leaving regular hotel doors. That's because the most powerful elected official in the world now comes and goes through the freight elevators and secure basements with the reeking garbage dumpsters.

July 24, 1998: Two days after shotgunning a dozen cats at his grandmother's house in Illinois, Russell Weston Jr . charged into the U.S. Capitol firing, presumably hunting members of Congress that he hated. Weston, who had previously been treated as a paranoid schizophrenic, exchanged fire with Capitol police, killing two officers before being wounded. He remains, untried, in a mental institution.

In case you champion or fear more gun control attempts as a result of the Tucson shootings, Gary Langer, the numbers maestro for ABC News, points out that more limits have not been the typical result of previous notorious shootings.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/01/gabrielle-giffords-jared-loughner-assassinations.html

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Profiles of the Arizona shooting victims

Besides a federal judge, the slain are a congressional staffer, three retirees and a girl born on Sept. 11, 2001.

January 9, 2011

The bullets did not discriminate. Sprayed from the barrel of a 9mm Glock semiautomatic pistol by a man whose actions may never make sense, they killed six people and wounded 14 more.

Those whose lives ended violently Saturday were participating in a basic democratic exercise. They had come to meet the woman who represents them in Washington, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. A Democrat who had won her third term by a sliver, Giffords was the intended target of the shooter's attack, authorities said.

Among the dead was John Roll, a 63-year-old federal judge known for his calm demeanor and deep knowledge of the law. Three of the slain were retired. One was a young Giffords staffer, a former social worker, who was getting married next year.

The smallest victim was a little brown-eyed girl.

Christina Green

Described as smart, quiet and gentle, 9-year-old Christina was born on Sept. 11, 2001. She was featured in a 2002 book of portraits called "Faces of Hope" about children born that day.

"She came in on a tragedy and she left on a tragedy," her father, John Green, told a Tucson TV station.

When she was little, Christina would tell people she was born on a holiday. "We'd have to correct her," her mother, Roxanna Green, told Fox News. "When she got older, she would try to see the positive in it … because it's a day of hope."

Bill Badger, who subdued the gunman, said he noticed Christina before the carnage began. The third-grader was standing behind Giffords, getting ready to meet the politician. The little girl was beaming.

Her mother said Christina was patriotic and liked to wear red, white and blue. Like a lot of girls her age, she loved animals, and wanted to be a veterinarian. She was also a passionate dancer and the only girl on her baseball team. Her talent for baseball was ingrained — her father is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and her grandfather is Dallas Green, a former major league pitcher who managed the Philadelphia Phillies to a World Series title in 1980.

"We're all hurting pretty bad," Dallas Green told the New York Daily News. "The worst thing to ever happen to us."

John and Roxanna Green also have an 11-year-old son named Dallas.

Christina had just been elected to the student council at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson. "She was a good speaker," her father told the Arizona Daily Star. "I could have easily seen her as a politician."

Knowing of her interest in politics, a neighbor invited her to meet Giffords on Saturday.

Authorities said Christina was dead by the time she arrived at the hospital.

"She had a bullet hole to the chest, and they tried to save her but she just couldn't make it," her mother told Fox. "It was really, really bad."

At St. Odilia's Parish, the Catholic church the Greens attend, Christina was described as smart and gentle. "She was a spectacular girl, but no one knew it. She was so quiet," Teresa Bier, the church's director of religious education, said Sunday.

Christina received her First Communion in the small turquoise building and sang in the children's choir, Joyful Noise.

"She was just the sweetest little thing," said Mary Figge, whose daughter, Mia, played on scooters with Christina last week. "She was always bubbly, always smiling."

— Ashley Powers and Robin Abcarian

Dorwan Stoddard

Dorwan and Mavy Stoddard had known each other as children in the Tucson area. They moved away, married other people and had children. After both were widowed, they reunited in their hometown and married nearly 15 years ago. Dorwan, 76, a retired construction worker and gas station owner, was killed as the couple stood in line to meet Giffords, whom Mavy admired.

The couple kept busy in retirement, taking a motor home to fishing holes in Oregon and Colorado and volunteering at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ.

"They got into people's lives," said Jody Nowak, wife of the Stoddards' pastor, Mike Nowak. "They didn't sit on the pew and do nothing."

The Stoddards often befriended couples who sought assistance from the church, and delivered food and flowers to the sick. Dorwan was a familiar face at the church, as was his black dog, Tux. He spent hours fixing leaks and doing other maintenance jobs. Over the years, he had fallen through a roof and off a ladder but always laughed off his bruises and scrapes.

In a corner of the church's sunlit worship area is a small, soundproof room that Dorwan built so parents could soothe their crying children and still hear the piped-in service. Named for him, it is called Dory's Room.

Nearby, two scratches mar a wall. Dorwan's ladder made the marks when he tumbled off it just before Christmas. Nowak said she thought they would leave the scratches there, in memoriam.

On Saturday morning, Mavy heard blasts that sounded like fireworks, and the couple dove toward some chairs as Dorwan tried to shield Mavy with his body, Nowak said. Mavy was struck at least once in each leg.

"She didn't realize she'd been shot," Nowak said. "All she felt was his weight on her."

"That would be something Dorwan would do," Mike Nowak said. "He would have protected her."

Before Dorwan died, Mavy told Jody, she was able to say goodbye to her husband.

Ashley Powers

Phyllis Schneck

The East Coast winters drove Phyllis Schneck, 79, and her husband, Ernie, to Arizona a decade ago. The couple, who met as teens in New Jersey, spent the final years of a 56-year marriage in a quiet retirement community in northwest Tucson, where she was known as an expert quilter who liked to pop by friends' houses with her homemade lemon curd.

Schneck headed to the Safeway on Saturday to meet Giffords. Though Schneck was a Republican, she had recently listened to Giffords on a conference call and hoped to shake her hand.

Schneck's friends remembered her as a kind and caring neighbor. She had run a women's club in New Jersey and became active in her Presbyterian church in Tucson — often donating her handmade aprons and needlepoint projects to benefit food banks and children's charities. One neighbor saw her recently at a neighborhood luau where she arrived in a green floral muumuu, with her famous pineapple upside-down cake.

Her world revolved around her three children, seven grandchildren, 2-year-old great-grandchild and her husband, who was the brother of her childhood best friend. Schneck once did administrative work at Fairleigh Dickinson University, but was mainly devoted to raising her children and her community work, said her daughter Betty-Jean Offutt.

The kitchen was the center of activity in the Schneck home, her daughter said. Ernie, who worked as a sheet metal fabricator in New Jersey, was always home at 5 o'clock so he wouldn't miss Phyllis' cooking. "When the food is good, you go home," said Offutt, who described her mother's macaroni and cheese as "top shelf."

Ernie and Phyllis Schneck shared a sharp sense of humor and often bowled together. They spent summers in a small lakeside community in New Jersey, Offutt said. Ernie died of cancer several years ago.

"They had a wonderful, happy marriage for 56 years," Offutt said, adding that her mother "would give you the shirt off her back. If you didn't have anywhere to go, she'd invite you over to dinner."

Maeve Reston

Dorothy Morris

George and Dorothy Morris of Oro Valley, Ariz., met as high school students in Reno. Ever since, friends say, they were at each other's side.

Both were shot Saturday morning. Dorothy, 76, died at the scene. George, hit in the chest and leg, is expected to leave intensive care Monday, said his longtime friend, Bill Royle.

"They seemed like they were on their honeymoon," Royle said. "They were always together."

George, also 76, was an airline pilot, first for Pan Am based in Germany and later for United. He had a side job selling real estate, and long after he retired from flying about 1995, he continued to work. Dorothy worked as his secretary and bookkeeper. They have two daughters, both of whom live in Las Vegas.

The two enjoyed retirement. They had a home in Pinetop, Ariz., a small community in the White Mountains, and an another in Panama they would visit about twice a year. Guests were always flowing into their home for regular get-togethers.

"They were people who were easy to get along with," Royle said. "They had their opinions, especially in politics, [but it was] nothing too radical."

Rick Rojas

Gabriel Zimmerman

When Gabe Zimmerman visited Washington in 2009 for President Obama's inauguration, he immersed himself in the monuments to American history, one of his passions.

"When we went to the Lincoln Memorial on a cold, damp January morning, the wind whipped through the place and it was freezing cold, but Gabe had to read every single word of the Gettysburg Address," said C.J. Karamargin, who worked with Zimmerman in Giffords' Tucson office.

That intensity was evident in every aspect of Zimmerman's life, including his devotion to his job helping Giffords' constituents, his search for the perfect engagement ring, his newfound zeal for the Byzantine Empire and his hours spent on the Stairmaster.

"He put his all into his work, he put his all into his life," Karamargin said.

Zimmerman, 30, died at Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event, which Zimmerman helped organize.

He joined Giffords' first congressional campaign in 2006, and joined her staff the following year.

Zimmerman's mother, Emily Nottingham, said he loved helping constituents solve problems. "He was always a caring child. It was a good career for him," Nottingham said in her Tucson home.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a bachelor's degree in sociology, Zimmerman worked for Arizona's Children, a treatment facility for troubled youth. He earned a master's degree in social work at Arizona State University.

"Gabe was unfailingly patient with people. He presided over thousands of constituent cases," Karamargin said. "He was helping World War II vets get medals, people with Medicare benefits, veterans with benefits issues. … He was determined to just do the best he could."

That determination was evident outside work as well.

"We belong to the same gym, and we would do the stair mill together and, you know, when we were done, I had a couple beads of sweat on my brow and Gabe was drenched," Karamargin said. "You could count the number of stories you climbed. I would do 132 in 30 minutes — Gabe was, like, 190. He was running up those steps."

Zimmerman ran marathons and had hiked the Grand Canyon multiple times. In 2012, he planned to marry Katie O'Brien.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-shooting-victims-20110110,0,1429157.story

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George Gascon named San Francisco district attorney

San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon confirmed Sunday that he will become the city's district attorney and serve out the remaining term of former D.A. Kamala Harris, California's new attorney general.

"I'm very honored for the opportunity to serve the people of San Francisco in this new role and look forward to continuing to work together with our community and the other partners in the criminal justice system to make San Francisco the safest large city in the U.S.,” Gascon, 56, said in an interview.

Gascon was named San Francisco chief in 2009 by Mayor Gavin Newsom after serving as chief of the Mesa, Ariz. police department. He previously was assistant chief in Los Angeles and was a key adviser to former Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton.

Gascon's appointment was one of the last official acts for Newsom, who is set to be sworn in Monday as the state's lieutenant governor.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/

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From the New York Times

Evidence Points to Methodical Planning

by MARC LACEY

TUCSON — Prosecutors charged Jared L. Loughner, a troubled 22-year-old college dropout, with five federal counts on Sunday, including the attempted assassination of a member of Congress, in connection with a shooting rampage on Saturday morning that left six people dead and 14 wounded.

Evidence seized from Mr. Loughner's home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix.

Special Agent Tony M. Taylor Jr. of the F.B.I. said in an affidavit that an envelope found in a safe in the home bore these handwritten words: “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and “Giffords.”

Mr. Loughner, who is believed to have acted alone, is in federal custody and is scheduled to make his first court appearance before a magistrate judge in Phoenix on Monday.

Ms. Giffords was in critical condition after surviving, against the odds, a single gunshot wound to the head at point-blank range. Her doctors were cautiously optimistic that she would survive, and said on Sunday that they had removed nearly half of her skull to prevent damage from the swelling of her brain.

An outpouring of grief was on display all over Tucson, where friends of the many victims joined complete strangers in lighting candles and offering tear-filled prayers. From the back of the temple Ms. Giffords attends, Naomi Present, the distraught daughter of a rabbi, cried out on Sunday morning, “Why, why, why, why?”

Many across America were asking the same thing, and the state found itself on the defensive, with its top lawmakers asserting that Arizona was not a hothouse of ugly rhetoric. President Obama called on Americans to observe a moment of silence at 11 a.m. Monday in honor of the wounded and dead.

Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I., traveled to Tucson to oversee the shooting investigation at Mr. Obama's request. He said an intensive investigation was seeking to determine “why someone would commit such a heinous act and whether anyone else was involved.” Mr. Mueller added that discussions were under way to increase security for all members of Congress.

Capitol security agencies are planning to join the F.B.I. on Wednesday in a security briefing for members of Congress. Already, the United States Marshals Service has increased protection for federal judges in Arizona.

Investigators here focused their attention on Mr. Loughner, whom they accused of methodically planning the shootings, which occurred outside a supermarket. The court documents said Mr. Loughner bought the semiautomatic Glock pistol used in the shooting at Sportsman's Warehouse, which sells hunting and fishing gear, on Nov. 30 in Tucson.

The gun was legally purchased, officials said, prompting criticism of the state's gun laws, which allow the carrying of concealed weapons. Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik of Pima County, a critic of what he calls loose gun restrictions, bluntly labeled Arizona “Tombstone.”

The documents also indicated that the suspect had previous contact with the congresswoman. Also found in the safe at Mr. Loughner's home was a letter from Ms. Giffords thanking him for attending a 2007 “Congress on Your Corner” event, like the one she was holding Saturday morning when she was shot.

Along with being accused of trying to kill Ms. Giffords, Mr. Loughner was charged with the killing and attempted killing of four government employees: John M. Roll, the chief federal judge in Arizona, who was killed; Gabriel Zimmerman, a Congressional aide, who was also killed; and Pamela Simon and Ron Barber, aides who were wounded. Mr. Loughner could face the death penalty if convicted.

The indictment against Mr. Loughner indicated that the authorities had surveillance video, which was not released, that captured events outside the supermarket. Outside lawyers said the footage would probably be saved for court. The authorities did release 911 tapes of the minutes after the shooting, at 10:11 a.m. Saturday, in which caller after caller, many out of breath, dialed in to report shots fired, many shots, and people falling, too many to count.

Mr. Mueller said additional state charges might be filed, and he did not rule out the filing of terrorism charges.

Mr. Loughner has refused to cooperate with investigators and has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, the Pima County sheriff's office said.

Judy Clarke, a federal public defender who has handled major cases, has been appointed to represent Mr. Loughner, CNN reported. Ms. Clarke has defended Theodore J. Kaczynski, who was convicted in the Unabomber attacks, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the Qaeda operative.

Early Sunday, the authorities released a photograph taken from the surveillance video of a possible accomplice in the shooting. But the man later contacted sheriff's deputies, who determined that he was a taxi driver who had taken the suspect to the mall where the shooting took place and then entered the supermarket with him when he did not have change for the $14 fare.

Seasoned trauma surgeons, used to seeing patients in distress, were shaken by the scale of the shootings.

“I never thought I would experience something like this in my own backyard,” said Dr. Peter M. Rhee, chief of trauma surgery at the University Medical Center, who has experience on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq and who likened what happened in Tucson to the mass shootings in those places.

Doctors treating Ms. Giffords said she had been able to respond to simple commands, an encouraging sign.

At a news conference at the hospital, surgeons said she was the only one of the victims to remain in critical care at the hospital. They said she was lucky to be alive but would not speculate about the degree of her recovery, which they said could take months or longer.

“Over all, this is about as good as it's going to get,” Dr. Rhee said. “When you get shot in the head and a bullet goes through your brain, the chances of you living are very small, and the chances of you waking up and actually following commands is even much smaller than that.”

Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the chief of neurosurgery, who operated on Ms. Giffords, said the bullet traveled through the left side of her brain “from back to front.” It did not cross from one side of the brain to the other, he said, nor did it pass through some critical areas that would further diminish her chances of recovery.

Officials said the attack could have been even more devastating had several victims not overwhelmed the suspect as he tried to reload his gun. A bystander, Patricia Maisch, who was waiting to meet Ms. Giffords, grabbed the gun's magazine as the gunman dropped it while trying to reload after firing 31 rounds, officials said. Two men, Roger Salzgeber and Bill D. Badger, then overwhelmed the gunman, and another man, Joseph Zamudio, restrained his flailing legs.

In addition to Judge Roll, 63, and Mr. Zimmerman, 30, who was the director of community outreach for Ms. Giffords, the others who died were identified as Christina Green, 9; Dorothy Morris, 76; Dorwin Stoddard, 76; and Phyllis Schneck, 79.

The new House speaker, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, denounced the attack in an early Sunday appearance in West Chester, his hometown, and said it was a reminder that public service “comes with a risk.”

Mr. Boehner urged people to pray for Ms. Giffords and the other victims and told his House colleagues to persevere in fulfilling their oath of office. “This inhuman act should not and will not deter us,” he said. “No act, no matter how heinous, must be allowed to stop us.”

He also said the normal business of the House for the coming week had been postponed “so that we can take necessary action regarding yesterday's events.” That business had included a vote to repeal the health care overhaul.

Mr. Loughner had exhibited increasingly strange behavior in recent months, including ominous Internet postings — at least one showing a gun — and a series of videos in which he made disjointed statements on topics like the gold standard and mind control.

Pima Community College, which he had attended, said he had been suspended for conduct violations and withdrew in October after five instances of classroom or library disruptions that involved the campus police.

As the investigation intensified on Sunday, the police were still at the scene of the shooting, a suburban shopping center known as La Toscana Village. Investigators have described the evidence collection as a monumental task given the large number of bullets fired and victims hit.

All of the cars in the parking lot were scrutinized in search of a vehicle the gunman might have driven to the scene. Then the taxi driver stepped forward to help explain how the suspect had arrived.

Nobody knew for sure what compelled the gunman. Ms. Giffords, who represents the Eighth District, in the southeastern corner of Arizona, has been an outspoken critic of the state's tough immigration law, which is focused on identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants, and she had come under criticism for her vote in favor of the health care law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10giffords.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

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Suspect's Odd Behavior Caused Growing Alarm

TUCSON — In a community college classroom here last June, on the first day of the term, the instructor in Jared L. Loughner's basic algebra class, Ben McGahee, posed what he thought was a simple arithmetic question to his students. He was not prepared for the explosive response.

“How can you deny math instead of accepting it?” Mr. Loughner asked, after blurting out a random number, according to Mr. McGahee.

Mr. McGahee, for one, was disturbed enough by the experience to complain to school authorities, who as early as last June were apparently concerned enough themselves to have a campus officer visit the classroom. And what Mr. McGahee described as a pattern of behavior by Mr. Loughner, marked by hysterical laughter, bizarre non sequiturs and aggressive outbursts, only continued.

“I was getting concerned about the safety of the students and the school,” said Mr. McGahee, who took to glancing out of the corner of his eye when he was writing on the board for fear that Mr. Loughner might do something. “I was afraid he was going to pull out a weapon.”

A student in the class, Lynda Sorenson, 52, wrote an e-mail to a friend expressing her concerns.

“We do have one student in the class who was disruptive today, I'm not certain yet if he was on drugs (as one person surmised) or disturbed. He scares me a bit,” Ms. Sorenson wrote in an e-mail in June that was forwarded Sunday to The New York Times.

“The teacher tried to throw him out and he refused to go, so I talked to the teacher afterward. Hopefully he will be out of class very soon, and not come back with an automatic weapon.”

Mr. Loughner's behavior grew so troubling that he was told he could no longer attend the school, and he appeared, given his various Internet postings, to find a sense of community in some of the more paranoid corners of the Internet.

Mr. Loughner seems at some point to have crossed a border. From being a young man whom acquaintances described as odd, he became the sole suspect in the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona's Eighth District. The police say he bought a 9-millimeter Glock handgun in November, and devised a plan to kill the congresswoman.

Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, who has taken charge of the investigation here, said at a news conference that possible links to extremist groups would be a continued focus.

“The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that not only threats but also hate speech and other inciteful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was 8 or 10 or 15 years ago,” Mr. Mueller said. “That absolutely presents a challenge for us, particularly when it results in what would be lone wolves or lone offenders undertaking attacks.”

The words echoed comments by Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, who said Saturday at a news conference that “unbalanced people” could be affected by the vitriol, anger and hatred of antigovernment rhetoric.

Mr. Loughner's friends and acquaintances said he was left isolated by his increasingly erratic behavior, apparently exacerbated by drug use. A military official said Sunday that Mr. Loughner had failed a drug screening when he tried to enlist in the Army.

Lydian Ali, a classmate at Pima Community College, said, “He would laugh a lot at inappropriate times, and a lot of the comments he made had no relevance to the discussion topic.”

Mr. Ali, 26, continued: “He presented a poem to the class that he'd written called ‘Meathead' that was mostly just about him going to the gym to work out. But it included a line about touching himself in the shower while thinking about girls. He was very enthusiastic when he read the poem out loud.”

At the Y.M.C.A. where Mr. Loughner worked out, he would ask the staff strange questions, like how often they disinfected the bathroom doors. Once he asked an employee how he felt “about the government taking over.” Another time, he sat in the men's room for 30 minutes, leaving front-desk staff members to wonder what he was doing. When he emerged, he asked what year it was.

“One day it would be a tie-dye shirt, and the next he'd be dressed like a rapper, with a beanie and everything,” said a trainer at the Y.M.C.A., Ben Lujan. “It was almost like he was trying to be different people.”

The exact role of politics in Mr. Loughner's life — or whether he had a specific political perspective at all — is harder to pin down. Investigators will have to wrestle with the difficult question of whether Mr. Loughner's parroting the views of extremist groups was somehow more a cause of the shootings or simply a symptom of a troubled life.

Mr. McGahee, the algebra instructor, said that after he went to school officials to complain about Mr. Loughner, he was told by a counselor that Mr. Loughner had caused problems in other classes and had “extreme political views.”

But one classmate, Steven Cates, said he had tried on occasion to engage Mr. Loughner in political discussions, with no luck. He instead liked to talk about philosophy, or logic or literature, Mr. Cates said. He added that one topic that Mr. Loughner seemed to be obsessed with was the American dollar.

“He had talked about not liking the currency,” Mr. Cates said. “And he wished that the U.S. would change to a different currency because our currency is worthless.”

Some people who study right-wing militia groups and those who align themselves with the so-called Patriot movement said Mr. Loughner's comments on subjects like the American currency and the Constitution, which he posted online in various video clips, were strikingly similar in language and tone to the voices of the Internet's more paranoid, extremist corners.

In the text on one of the videos, for example, Mr. Loughner states, “No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver.” He also argues that “the current government officials are in power for their currency” and he uses his videos to display text about becoming a treasurer of “a new money system.”

The position, for instance, that currency not backed by a gold or silver standard is worthless is a hallmark of the far right and the militia movement, said Mark Potok, who directs research on hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“That idea is linked closely to the belief among militia supporters that the Federal Reserve is a completely private entity engaged in ripping off the American people,” Mr. Potok said.

But Mr. Loughner also posits in his Web postings the idea that the government is seeking to control people through rules and structure of grammar and language.

This is similar to the position of David Wynn Miller, 62, a former tool-and-die welder from Milwaukee who describes himself as a “Plenipotentiary-judge” seeking to correct, through a mathematical formula, what he sees as the erroneous and manipulative use of grammar and language worldwide. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers Mr. Miller a conspiracy theorist, some of whose positions have been adopted by militias in general.

“The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar,” Mr. Loughner said in a video. He also defiantly asserted, “You control your English grammar structure.”

Mr. Miller, in an interview, said the argument sounded familiar. “He's probably been on my Web site, which has been up for about 11 years,” Mr. Miller said. “The government does control the schools, and the schools determine the grammar and language we use. And then it is all reinforced by newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and everything we do in society.”

Law enforcement officials said they suspected that Mr. Loughner might also have been influenced by things like American Renaissance, a conservative magazine that describes itself as “America's premiere publication of racial-realist thought.”

“We think that white Americans have an entirely legitimate reason to want to remain a majority in the United States because when a neighborhood or a school or an organization changes in demographics and becomes majority black or Hispanic, it is no longer the same institution or neighborhood,” said Jared Taylor, its editor.

He added, “It may be shocking to hear something stated so bluntly.”

Mr. Taylor said that his organization had searched its subscriber list going back 20 years, as well as lists of those who had attended the group's conferences since 1994, but that there was no record of a Mr. Loughner.

But even as Mr. Loughner was exploring the outer boundaries of extremist philosophy, his life at school, which some acquaintances said was very important to him, was unraveling.

Through the fall, administrators at Pima Community College became increasingly concerned as reports involving Mr. Loughner, like that day in algebra class, continued to come in.

Most of the reports, according to Paul Schwalbach, a college spokesman, were about how Mr. Loughner was “acting out” in disruptive or inappropriate ways. By last fall, officials at the college had learned about an Internet video that Mr. Loughner had prepared citing Pima College and claiming that it was in some way illegal or unconstitutional.

The college had its lawyers review the video and decided at that point to take action, drafting a letter suspending Mr. Loughner, which was delivered to his parents' home in northwest Tucson by two police officers on Sept. 29.

At a meeting in early October at the college's northwest campus, where he attended classes, Mr. Loughner said he would withdraw. Three days later, the college sent him a letter telling him that if he wanted to return, he would need to undergo a mental health evaluation. “After this event, there was no further college contact with Loughner,” the college said in a statement.

Mr. Cates, the former classmate, said he thought that leaving Pima was probably a major blow to Mr. Loughner.

“He was really into school. He really loved the acquisition of knowledge. He was all about that,” Mr. Cates said. “It would make sense that losing that outlet would be a negative thing for him psychologically.”

But this was just the latest in a series of blows. Mr. Loughner also tried to enlist in the Army in 2008, but failed a drug-screening test, Pentagon officials confirmed.

Some people who knew, or at least glimpsed, Mr. Loughner's life at home with his parents, Randy and Amy Loughner, said they found the family inscrutable sometimes, and downright unpleasant at other times, especially the behavior of Randy Loughner.

“Sometimes our trash would be out, and he would come up and yell that the trash stinks,” said a next-door neighbor, Anthony Woods, 19. “He's very aggressive.”

Mrs. Loughner has worked for the city's Parks Department for many years, Tucson officials confirmed. Mr. Loughner's employment, if any, was not known. Mr. Woods and his father, Stephen, 46, said they rarely saw the older Mr. Loughner go anywhere.

No one was home, or came to the door, at the Loughners' house on Sunday morning. The house itself was mostly obscured by a tree and a huge intertwined cactus in the front.

Kylie Smith, who said she had known Mr. Loughner since elementary school, said she was struggling to reconcile her memories of the boy she knew with the portrait that the police and investigators were painting.

“It just seems so out of character for the Jared I grew up with,” Ms. Smith said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/10shooter.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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Treating an Injured Brain Is a Long, Uncertain Process

WASHINGTON — The bullet that a gunman fired into Representative Gabrielle Giffords's head on Saturday morning in Arizona went straight through the left side of her brain, entering the back of her skull and exiting the front.

Trauma surgeons spent two hours on Saturday following an often-performed drill developed from extensive experience treating gunshot wounds in foreign wars and violence in American homes and streets. On Saturday, that drill really began outside a supermarket, with paramedics performing triage to determine the seriousness of the wounds in each of the 20 gunshot victims.

Ms. Giffords, 40, was taken to the University Medical Center in Tucson, where, 38 minutes after arrival, she was whisked to an operating room. She did not speak at the hospital.

As part of the two-hour operation, her surgeons said on Sunday, they removed debris from the gunshot, a small amount of dead brain tissue and nearly half of Ms. Giffords's skull to prevent swelling that could transmit increased pressure to cause more extensive and permanent brain damage. The doctors preserved the skull bone for later replanting.

Since surgery, they have used short-acting drugs to put Ms. Giffords in a medical coma that they lift periodically to check on her neurological responses.

They said early signs made them cautiously optimistic that Ms. Giffords would survive the devastating wound.

“Things are going very well, and we are all very happy at this stage,” Dr. Peter Rhee, the director of medical trauma at the hospital, said at a news conference.

Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., the hospital's chief of neurosurgery, was more cautious. “Brain swelling is the biggest threat now,” Dr. Lemole said, “because it can take a turn for the worse at any time.”

Such swelling often peaks in about four or five days, then begins to disappear.

The doctors said that it was far too early to know how much long-term functional brain damage, if any, Ms. Giffords would suffer. They also say they will carefully monitor her over the next few days as she faces a number of potential complications, like infections, that can hamper her recovery. Full rehabilitation could take months to years. Long-term complications could include seizures.

The optimism expressed Sunday was based on Ms. Giffords's ability to communicate by responding nonverbally to the doctors' simple commands, like squeezing a hand, wiggling toes and holding up two fingers. The tests are part of a standard neurological examination after head injuries. In Ms. Giffords's case, the doctors were encouraged because the simple tests showed that she could hear and respond appropriately, indicating that key brain circuits were working.

“If she's following commands, that's great and a very big step toward recovery,” Dr. Eugene S. Flamm, chairman of neurosurgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, said in an interview. Dr. Flamm is not involved in Ms. Giffords's treatment.

Functional neurological recovery from a gunshot wound depends on a number of factors, including the specific area of the brain that is injured, the number of bullets, their trajectory and velocity, and luck.

Ms. Giffords was shot once in the head, according to Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz., and the doctors who treated her said that tests showed the bullet did not cross the geometric center line dividing the brain's left and right hemispheres.

“That's very good because bullets that affect both hemispheres have a much higher mortality because the swelling affects both sides,” said Dr. Flamm, who has treated many gunshot wounds in his career, including 25 years at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, 11 years as chief of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and 11 years at Montefiore.

In traversing the left side of Ms. Giffords's brain, the bullet went through what is the dominant side in about 85 percent of people, whether they are right- or left-handed, Dr. Flamm explained.

“It sounds simple to raise fingers and squeeze hands,” he said, “but the ability to do it is a very good sign in a brain-injured patient because it shows that the dominant hemisphere was not knocked out.”

The doctors in Tucson did not cite the bullet's trajectory — that is, whether it entered at the top of the back of the skull and exited at a lower point or whether it went straight through.

If the bullet went through the visual area in the occipital part of the back of the brain, it could affect the right side of Ms. Giffords's peripheral vision, Dr. Flamm said, adding, “It is hard to piece that together without more information.” Ms. Giffords is unable to speak because she is connected to a ventilator and unable to open her eyes, which doctors have covered with patches.

It is usually several weeks before doctors can fully evaluate cognitive function in a patient who has suffered a gunshot wound to the brain, and the body has a significant capacity to compensate for serious injuries.

Although Ms. Giffords's ability to follow commands is encouraging, her doctors said that it would take several weeks to know what her recovery would be. That is a caveat that Dr. Flamm well understands. “I can understand the impatience of wanting to know it now,” he said. “But even if I wanted to know and examined her myself, I wouldn't be able to answer that question at this stage.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/health/10medical.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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After Shooting, Fresh Look at Protecting Lawmakers

WASHINGTON — Threats and abuse from constituents have always been part of the job when it comes to Congressional life, along with regular encounters with troubled individuals who see their local lawmaker as a convenient outlet for their grievances.

Now, in the aftermath of the Arizona shootings, lawmakers and those responsible for their safety are confronting the issue of how to gauge the risks posed by people they might have shrugged off in the past while maintaining open channels to the public.

“In each district you represent your share of unstable people,” Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, said Sunday as he and other House members pulled for the recovery of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and struggled with how to respond to the shootings. “Now you are aware that they do show up at your town hall meetings and maybe they are not all harmless.”

While representatives of the United States Capitol Police and the office of the House sergeant-at-arms told lawmakers that the attack on Ms. Giffords was not part of a wider threat, they are urging them to review their security arrangements, make contact with local law enforcement officials and name a staff member as liaison with law enforcement.

On Wednesday, the Capitol security agencies are to join the F.B.I. in conducting a joint security briefing for Republicans and Democrats, who acknowledge new worries about their safety — and that of their families and staff members.

“It obviously shook all of us,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, who said the shootings might make him more likely to carry his gun, as he is legally allowed to do in Utah. “It hits close to home.”

Lawmakers also live the most public of lives and, like Ms. Giffords, heavily promote their local events to encourage people to attend. They say that they cannot retreat behind police escorts and security barriers.

“I know that I am considered to be a bit more confrontational and outspoken,” said Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, “and I've lived with that all of my life, that my political philosophy and my willingness to speak up and speak out kind of creates risk and some danger. I accept that as part of my job.”

Though the attack in Arizona went far beyond confrontations lawmakers had at town hall-style meetings in the summer of 2009 and other recent clashes with the public, the common perception among Congressional veterans is that the current political climate is as bad as they can recall.

“I don't think I have seen a period of time when there was more anger and incivility manifested than in the last two years,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House and a veteran of more than 40 years in government.

Whether threats have measurably increased is difficult to gauge because the Capitol Police, the primary agency for protecting lawmakers, declined to answer questions about the volume of incidents.

“We do investigate threats against members of Congress and, when necessary, work with other law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels,” Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said in an e-mail to The New York Times. “The statistics that we maintain internally for threat-assessment purposes are not shared for security reasons.”

Last year, charges were filed against a man accused of threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, over her support of the health care law, and another man was arrested for making threatening and harassing phone calls to Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the House, over the same piece of legislation. The Tucson office of Ms. Giffords was among those vandalized during the health care fight.

An official with the F.B.I. said the Capitol Police occasionally referred information about threats to the bureau when they had particular elements that made them seem “actionable.” Often, it involves ambiguous remarks or a tone in a communication to a lawmaker's office that can be read as threatening.

F.B.I. investigators try to determine whether the sender intended for it to be read that way and whether there is anything else in his or her background that would elevate concerns. “We take everything seriously,” the official said. “If something comes to our attention, we're going to resolve it one way or the other.”

After the shootings, lawmakers said some security improvements might need to be made, from working more closely with the local police when holding public meetings or, in an idea raised by Mr. Chaffetz, perhaps giving the United States Marshals Service some role in Congressional protection.

Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who had a unruly health care town meeting in Austin in the summer of 2009, said he had found that the presence of a local police officer at a public event often helped keep people under control. “We just cannot let this stop what is at the heart of being a representative,” he said about the shootings.

With 535 members of Congress, the costs of individual protection are considered prohibitive, and many lawmakers say they would not want a strong police presence anyway.

Representative Robert A. Brady, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said Sunday that he intended to introduce legislation that would extend to members of Congress the federal law criminalizing threats to the president. “If people engage in this, they need to know that it is criminal and it's going to be a criminal offense,” he said.

Other lawmakers said members of Congress needed to be prudent in their security arrangements but be careful to not go too far.

“You're not a kamikaze pilot, but you can't be hiding under the desk or putting on a disguise every time you go out, especially when you're meeting the public,” said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey. “And my job is meeting the public.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10security.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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America and Guns, Once More

WASHINGTON — Violence is not endemic to America. Gun violence is.

The tragic killings of a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl and the serious wounding of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday underscored that reality. Gun murders occur in other developed countries, but not with anywhere near the frequency.

There are almost 300 million guns in America, a third of them handguns, and almost 100 million are owned by the public. This is the highest concentration of gun ownership in the world.

Not surprisingly, the United States also has the highest gun homicide rate, almost 3.5 per 100,000, of any industrialized country. European countries and Japan have only a fraction of such firearm homicides.

The young man who is suspected of committing the Tucson shootings apparently used a Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol with a high-capacity magazine that held 30 rounds of ammunition. The gun, which sells for about $500, was purchased at a sporting-goods store. Reportedly, the weapon was purchased by Jared Loughner, who, according to the community college he attended, has a history of mental health issues.

The law says background checks are supposed to be run on buyers of semiautomatic weapons, but it is not uncommon for that requirement to be ignored.

Yet for all the heartfelt outrage engendered by the shootings — politicians of every stripe condemned them — history suggests that very little will change. America has had scores of prominent people killed by guns, and any changes are piecemeal and then often rolled back.

In 1981, after Jim Brady, the White House press secretary, was severely and permanently wounded by a gun assailant who was aiming at President Ronald Reagan, Congress enacted the so-called Brady Law, mildly cracking down on the availability of handguns.

For most of the last 30 years, all the movement has been toward weakening, not strengthening, that law.

There was a federal assault-weapons ban during the Clinton administration that prohibited the sale of the type of high-capacity magazine that apparently was used by the Tucson shooter. That measure was permitted to expire during George W. Bush's presidency.

There are multiple reasons why this issue is so uniquely American. Start with culture. In nonurban and suburban parts of America, especially the West and South, guns are a way of life, a longstanding tradition. Ms. Giffords herself, a respected political moderate, is a defender of gun rights, as are most Arizona politicians.

Moreover, while most Americans support reasonable limits on guns — semiautomatic pistols are not the weapon of choice for hunters — that silent majority, in the political world, is drowned out by the gun advocates. For many of them, it is a determinative voting issue.

Four decades ago, two Democratic senators, Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania and Joseph Tydings of Maryland, were defeated, and the conventional wisdom was that their support for gun control was a principal reason.

Actually, most subsequent research and analysis indicates it was only a small factor, but that perception affected congressional politics for years.

Meanwhile, the clout of the National Rifle Association only grew. There are few lobbies in Washington as powerful or protective of their interests. Any gun laws are seen as violations of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which cites the need for a well-regulated militia, stocked with arms.

The power of the N.R.A. is pervasive, both in Washington and in state capitals. When Democrats were trying to pass a campaign-finance disclosure measure last year, they had to write a special exemption for the gun lobby in order to secure majority support in the House.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama, an urban Democrat realizing the political sensitivities, rarely mentioned gun control. Liberal Democrats like Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio boasted of their support for gun ownership.

Even if these politics could be countered, the courts, especially the Supreme Court, are raising new, and probably insurmountable, obstacles to substantive gun control. Last year, the court threw out a Chicago gun-control ordinance.

Details of the Arizona tragedy will emerge and provide a fuller picture of the factors and causations.

It is difficult not to tentatively conclude that incendiary language in American politics and particularly in Arizona, where the immigration issue stirs strong passions, did not play some part, as the Tucson sheriff, Clarence W. Dupnik, lamented over the weekend.

It would be outrageously unfair to blame the Tea Party movement or right-wing conservatives for senseless violence. The vast majority of these citizens, including leaders like Sarah Palin or Ms. Giffords's Republican opponent last November — who invited her to join him on an M-16 rifle shooting expedition — are patriotic Americans who eschew violence.

Yet it is not a reach to wonder whether unstable minds, in particular, are affected when Ms. Palin circulates a map of 20 Democrats running for reelection who should be defeated, including Ms. Giffords. The map showed their districts targeted by crosshairs. After the election Ms. Palin bragged about defeating 18 of the 20 — Ms. Giffords was one of the two Democrats who won — that were on her “bull's eye” list. A Palin spokesman over the weekend insisted this was never intended to be about “gun sights” and that it was “repulsive” to politicize the Arizona shootings.

Conservatives have no monopoly on incitement; the political left sometimes crossed the line during the Bush presidency. But when political leaders or elected officials talk of putting opponents in the crosshairs, or seriously suggest that the president was not really born in America, they provide aid and comfort to the unstable.

The outpouring of emotions, starting with Mr. Obama and the new House speaker, John Boehner of Ohio, over what occurred in a Tucson parking lot has been genuine and moving. Let's hope it isn't ephemeral.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/10iht-letter10.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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EDITORIAL

Bloodshed and Invective in Arizona

She read the First Amendment on the House floor — including the guarantee of “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” — and then flew home to Arizona to put those words into practice. But when Gabrielle Giffords tried to meet with her constituents in a Tucson parking lot on Saturday, she came face to face with an environment wholly at odds with that constitutional ideal, and she nearly paid for it with her life.

Jared Loughner, the man accused of shooting Ms. Giffords, killing a federal judge and five other people, and wounding 13 others, appears to be mentally ill. His paranoid Internet ravings about government mind control place him well beyond usual ideological categories.

But he is very much a part of a widespread squall of fear, anger and intolerance that has produced violent threats against scores of politicians and infected the political mainstream with violent imagery. With easy and legal access to semiautomatic weapons like the one used in the parking lot, those already teetering on the edge of sanity can turn a threat into a nightmare.

Last spring, Capitol security officials said threats against members of Congress had tripled over the previous year, almost all from opponents of health care reform. An effigy of Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., a Maryland Democrat, was hung from a gallows outside his district office. Ms. Giffords's district office door was smashed after the health vote, possibly by a bullet.

The federal judge who was killed, John Roll, had received hundreds of menacing phone calls and death threats, especially after he allowed a case to proceed against a rancher accused of assaulting 16 Mexicans as they tried to cross his land. This rage, stirred by talk-radio hosts, required marshals to give the judge and his family 24-hour protection for a month. Around the nation, threats to federal judges have soared for a decade.

It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But it is legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge. Many on the right have exploited the arguments of division, reaping political power by demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats. They seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.

That whirlwind has touched down most forcefully in Arizona, which Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described after the shooting as the capital of “the anger, the hatred and the bigotry that goes on in this country.” Anti-immigrant sentiment in the state, firmly opposed by Ms. Giffords, has reached the point where Latino studies programs that advocate ethnic solidarity have actually been made illegal.

Its gun laws are among the most lenient, allowing even a disturbed man like Mr. Loughner to buy a pistol and carry it concealed without a special permit. That was before the Tucson rampage. Now, having seen first hand the horror of political violence, Arizona should lead the nation in quieting the voices of intolerance, demanding an end to the temptations of bloodshed, and imposing sensible controls on its instruments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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