Month: January 2011

I just heard about this:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range today outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store where she was holding a campaign event, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Giffords was among as many as 12 people reportedly wounded in the shooting, and according to Congressional sources, several people on the Deomcrat’s staff were among the wounded.

She was taken to University Medical Center, where a hospital spokesman confirmed she was alive. But the extent and seriousness of her injuries were not being released.

The shooter is reportedly in custody.
As I wrote this, it has been reported that Rep. Giffords has died.  Several others were shot in the incident.  CNN is reporting “at least 12” including Giffords, and at least three others have died.

Damn.

UPDATE 1:00 PM:  The news is now reporting that Giffords is NOT dead, but seriously wounded.  Thirteen shot, six are dead.

2:00 PM update:  UMC Press conference announcement – UMC received ten gunshot patients, one died – a “young child about nine years old.” A girl.  Damn.  Giffords is out of surgery for “a through-and-through injury” to the head, but the surgeon giving the report stated that he believed she would survive.  Five others are stable, five are in surgery – which doesn’t work out mathematically, but it seemed a bit rushed.  Bottom line, one child dead, Giffords should survive.  I expect her recovery will take some time.

4:00 Update:  Had to take the dog to the vet.  She got into something she shouldn’t have.  They have released the name of the shooter:  Jared Lee Loughner.  He’s not, apparently, an agent of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.  I still haven’t heard a hard certain number of victims, but it appears that at least five have died, including a federal district judge and the young girl mentioned previously.

8:15 Update:  OK, according to the Pima County Sheriff, nineteen (19) people were shot. Six are dead, five are critical (including Giffords) and five are in serious condition.  Perp used a “semi-automatic weapon.”  Rumors are it was a Glock. There were no other shooters.  Two people tackled the shooter after he ran out of ammo.  Apparently he didn’t save one for himself.  The shooter, based on his YouTube, MySpace and Facebook pages is well past a half-bubble off plumb.  People he went to high school with remember him as “lefty” in his politics, but who knows, that can change with time.  There is little doubt that this was an assassination attempt.  The reasoning behind it could be political or it could be that the Giant Twinkie told him to.  Or the command was hidden in a secret code in Mein Kampf that only he was able to decipher.  It apparently went down pretty rapidly, and Giffords was one of, if not the first of the victims, then he apparently opened up on the crowd until he ran out of ammo.  The Sheriff’s department is seeking another person, male, who is believed to have transported the shooter to the site.  That person’s identity is not known, or if it is, they aren’t saying.

The Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik (among others) is blaming the attack on the “inflammatory rhetoric” in politics today.  Expect to see this as the emergent Media Narrative over the next days and weeks. 

You don’t really think that JournoList went away, do you?