A 22-year-old man charged with trying to assassinate US lawmaker Gabrielle Giffords by shooting her during a bloody rampage that killed six people and wounded 14 was due to appear in court yesterday on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Doctors are optimistic that Giffords will recover after undergoing emergency brain surgery after being shot in the head, but she is still in critical condition in a Tucson hospital.
The shooting spree in Tucson on Saturday has fueled debate about extreme political rhetoric in the US after an acrimonious campaign for congressional elections in November last year.
The US government has charged the suspected shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted assassination of a member of US Congress and two other counts of attempted murder.
US President Barack Obama called on Americans to observe a moment of silence at 11am yesterday to commemorate the victims of the shooting.
FBI Director Robert Mueller cautioned public officials to be on alert, but said there was no information to suggest a further specific threat.
Mueller said “hate speech and other inciteful speech” presented a challenge to law enforcement officials, especially when it resulted in “lone wolves” undertaking attacks.
“When the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates, and to try to inflame the public on a daily basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, has [an] impact on people, especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with,” said Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County where the shootings occurred.
Loughner was due to appear in court in Phoenix yesterday afternoon, the US Department of Justice said, as reports emerged of a troubled young man who had been asked to leave a local college for disruptive behavior.
He will be represented in court by Judy Clarke, the lawyer who defended Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the federal defenders’ office said.
Investigators said they had found an envelope at Loughner’s residence with the handwritten phrases “I planned ahead” and “My assassination,” along with the name “Giffords” and what appeared to be Loughner’s signature.
The suspect opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol while the Democrat was attending a political meeting in a supermarket parking lot. US federal judge John Roll and a nine-year-old girl were among the six people killed.
Dupnik said a wounded woman, identified by CNN as Patricia Maisch, had grabbed away an ammunition magazine from the gunman as he tried to reload after shooting into the crowd. He managed to fit in another magazine, but it jammed and he was tackled by two men.
Gun violence is common in the US, but political shootings are rare.
Giffords had warned that heated rhetoric had prompted violent threats against her and vandalism at her office. Mueller said the suspect had attended a public event held by Giffords in 2007.
In an interview last year with MSNBC, Giffords cited a map of electoral targets put out by Sarah Palin, a Republican former Alaska governor and prominent conservative, that had each been marked by the crosshairs of a rifle sight.
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