US Congresswoman Giffords shot during community meeting

Doctors are optimistic US Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona will survive being shot in the head by a man who opened fire at her community meeting in Tucson, killing six people including a federal judge. A man taken into custody after yesterday’s shooting had “a troubled past” and had made threats against public figures, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told reporters. Authorities are looking for another man who may have accompanied the suspect to the meeting, the sheriff said.

At least 18 people were shot, and among those who died were US District Judge John Roll and a 9-year-old girl.

Giffords, a Democrat beginning her third two-year term in the US House, survived a single gunshot to the head and underwent surgery at University Medical Center in Tucson, Dr Peter Rhee said at a press conference. Giffords was responding to commands, and neurosurgeons were optimistic for her recovery, Rhee said. “With guarded optimism I hope that she will survive but this is a very devastating wound,” former US Surgeon General Richard Carmona said later at Dupnik’s news conference. Carmona said he spoke with Giffords’s surgeons and viewed medical reports. “She’s severely injured,” he said.

The suspect taken into custody was identified as Jared Loughner, 22, according to a US law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to release the information. A pistol was used in the shootings, the official said.

National tragedy, says Obama
President Barack Obama, speaking to reporters in Washington, called the shooting “a tragedy for our entire country.” “Violence has no place in a free society,” the president said earlier in an e-mailed statement. Obama sent Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller to Arizona to lead the probe into the shooting.

Legislative business on the US House calendar for the coming week is being postponed, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said in a statement. The House had planned to vote January 12 on a repeal of Obama’s health-care overhaul.

Dupnik said he is “not convinced” the suspect acted alone. Dupnik said authorities had a photo of the man who may have accompanied the gunman and who was being viewed as a “person of interest.” He described the person as white and “probably in his 50s.”

Dupnik also said a “suspicious package” found outside Giffords’s Tucson offices was being investigated.

Alex Villec, 19-year-old volunteer for Giffords’s campaign, told reporters at the scene that he was just feet away when the man opened fire. The man barged through a line of people waiting to meet Giffords and asked to speak with her, he said. Villec, a sophomore at Georgetown University, said he told the man to go to the back of the group and wait his turn. He did, and returned several minutes later, when he opened fire.