2011 Tucson shooting

• 1. Congress on Your Corner

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  The 2011 Tucson shooting began at a table set up outside a Safeway supermarket in Casas Adobes, Arizona, a community just north of Tucson. At 10:10 on the morning of the 8th of January 2011, United States Representative Gabrielle Giffords was meeting voters there. She called the event "Congress on Your Corner." Between 20 and 30 people had gathered around her table. A store security camera recorded what happened next, though the footage was never released to the public. Within minutes, an ordinary neighborhood errand had become a crime scene that drew in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the President. This documentary asks three questions. Who were the strangers who stepped in when the shooting started? What had the gunman been building toward in the months before? And why did a shooting in one parking lot set off a national argument about the words Americans use against one another?

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• 2. Seconds of Chaos

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  Jared Lee Loughner, then 22, suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot Giffords in the head at point-blank range. He then fired, apparently at random, into the crowd around her. His weapon was a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, and he carried four magazines. Two of those magazines could hold 33 rounds. A nearby store employee later said he heard "15 to 20 gunshots."

  A single dropped magazine changed what happened next. Loughner stopped to reload, and a loaded magazine slipped from his pocket onto the sidewalk. Bystander Patricia Maisch grabbed it.

  Roger Salzgeber struck the back of the gunman's head with a folding chair and injured his own elbow doing it. Bill Badger, a 74-year-old retired United States Army Colonel who had been shot himself, tackled Loughner to the ground. Maisch, Salzgeber and another bystander, Joseph Zamudio, helped keep him pinned down.

  Zamudio held a concealed weapon permit and was carrying a gun. He reached the scene after the shooting had stopped and never drew it. Investigators later found 31 shell casings at the scene.

  At 10:11, the first call from the scene reached emergency services. Daniel Hernández Jr., one of Giffords's interns, pressed on the wound in her forehead while help was on the way. He also made sure she did not choke on her blood. Hernández and a local paramedic, Aaron Rogers, are credited with saving her life.

  David and Nancy Bowman, a married doctor and nurse who had been shopping in the store, set up triage at once. They attended to nine-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. Police arrived at 10:15 and paramedics at 10:16. Badger saw the gunman trying to discard a small bag holding money and identification, and officers recovered it.

  Police shut the roads around the shopping center until late in the day. The intersection was cordoned off, and most of the businesses there stayed closed through the weekend. Several of the wounded were rushed to University Medical Center in Tucson, where the full toll would become clear.

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• 3. The Gunman

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  Jared Lee Loughner lived with his parents, Randy and Amy Loughner, in Tucson, about 5 miles from the shopping center. His mother worked for the City Parks Department, and what his father did for a living was not known. Loughner had been attending Pima Community College, and former classmates said he once cared about his education because he appreciated knowledge.

  On the 29th of September 2010, the college suspended him after teachers and students complained about his increasingly disruptive behavior. He dropped out in October. To return, he would have needed a mental health evaluation and clearance, and he chose not to go back.

  Loughner had two earlier offenses, one of them for drug possession. In August 2007, he had met Giffords at a "Congress on your Corner" event in a Tucson mall, and he later became obsessed with her. In 2008, he tried to enlist in the United States Army. Officials said his application was rejected as "unqualified," and they declined to say more, citing confidentiality rules. An administration official told the media he had failed a drug test.

  For some time, Loughner had been posting online through a Myspace account and on YouTube under the name "Classitup10." He wrote about terrorism and federal laws. He also voiced a belief that the government was brainwashing citizens through language. Hours before the shooting, his Myspace page carried a post reading "Goodbye," and he told friends, "Please don't be mad at me."

  On the 30th of November 2010, Loughner bought his Glock 19 at a Sportsman's Warehouse store in Tucson and passed a background check.

  The morning of the shooting held a few more warning signs. Loughner reportedly argued with his father over a black bag he had taken from a car trunk. A bag matching that description was later found in a nearby desert area, holding 9mm ammunition, and it is believed to be his. At about 7:30, an Arizona Game and Fish Department officer stopped him for running a red light. The officer found no outstanding warrants and let him go with a warning.

  Later, Loughner's parents came home, unaware of what had happened, and found police tape and police cars around the house. Neighbor Wayne Smith said Loughner's mother "almost passed out right there," while his father sat in the road and cried. Three days later, the parents released a statement saying, "We don't understand why this happened."

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• 4. Piecing Together a Motive

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  Because the shooting happened in unincorporated Casas Adobes, outside the Tucson city limits, the Pima County Sheriff's Department began the investigation. The Tucson Police Department and the Arizona Department of Public Safety assisted. Then President Barack Obama ordered FBI Director Robert Mueller to Arizona, and the FBI took over. The United States Capitol Police ran an investigation of their own.

  Loughner refused to cooperate with the FBI and invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. Authorities said his motive was unknown. Yet a safe in his home gave them a trail. Inside was an envelope marked with the notes "I planned ahead," "My assassination," and "Giffords." The safe also held a letter from Giffords's office thanking him for attending a similar event in 2007.

  Police reports added details about his final days. He had bought the pistol less than six weeks earlier. On the morning of the shooting, he tried to buy more ammunition at a Walmart, but the clerk refused to sell it to him because of his appearance and demeanor.

  Federal officials charged him the next day with killing federal employees, attempting to assassinate a member of Congress, and attempting to kill federal employees. Those charges were only the start of a legal fight that would last nearly two years.

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• 5. Courtroom in San Diego

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  Loughner was held without bail at the Federal Correctional Institution in Phoenix. Every federal judge based in Arizona recused from the case because of their ties to Judge John Roll, who had been killed in the attack. The case went to Judge Larry Alan Burns of the Southern District of California, based in San Diego. Public defender Judy Clarke, also from San Diego, was appointed to represent Loughner.

  On the 19th of January 2011, a federal grand jury indicted him on three counts. They covered the attempted assassination of Giffords and the attempted killing of two federal employees, her aides Ron Barber and Pamela Simon. On the 3rd of March, further murder and attempted murder charges brought the total to 49 counts.

  Arizona prosecutors also filed murder and attempted murder charges for the victims who were not federal employees. Normally, Arizona's speedy trial statutes give state prosecutors ten days after a suspect is taken into custody to file charges. Time spent in federal custody does not count toward that limit. A conviction in either court could have meant the death penalty.

  Two medical evaluations diagnosed Loughner with paranoid schizophrenia, and Judge Burns found him incompetent to stand trial. He was ordered to be medicated by force. A new evaluation was set for the 25th of January 2012. On the 6th of February 2012, his stay at a facility in Springfield, Missouri, was extended by four months. His lawyers asked to end the forced medication, and the request was denied.

  On the 7th of August 2012, forensic psychologist Dr. Christina Pietz testified that she believed Loughner was competent. Judge Burns agreed, and Loughner pleaded guilty to 19 counts.

  He appeared for sentencing on the 8th of November 2012, with several of his victims and relatives of the dead in attendance. Judge Burns gave him seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in prison without parole.

  Afterward, Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall announced that she would not bring a state prosecution. After consulting each surviving victim and the families of those killed, she concluded a second case would not benefit them. They told her they were "completely satisfied with the federal prosecution," that "justice has been served," and that the federal sentence was "suitably severe."

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• 6. Giffords's Recovery

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  Some news organizations first reported that Giffords had been killed, and they quickly corrected themselves. She had survived with a gunshot wound to the head. She reached University Medical Center in critical condition, though still conscious. Within 38 minutes, she was in emergency surgery. Surgeons removed part of her skull to prevent further brain damage from swelling, and doctors placed her in a medically induced coma so her brain could rest.

  On the 12th of January, at the memorial ceremony in Tucson, President Obama announced that she had opened her eyes for the first time since the attack. She soon began simple physical therapy and music therapy. On the 21st of January 2011, less than two weeks after the shooting, she was stable enough to be released to Memorial Hermann Medical Center in Houston. A few days later, she moved to the center's Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. Her Houston doctors said she had "great rehabilitation potential."

  On the 1st of August 2011, Giffords walked onto the House floor to vote in favor of raising the debt limit ceiling. Her colleagues gave her a standing ovation. From the 25th of October through the 4th of November, she underwent intensive rehabilitation in Asheville, North Carolina.

  Her husband, Mark Kelly, published a memoir in 2011 called Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, crediting her as joint author. He wrote that she vowed to return to Congress. He also wrote that she still struggled with language and had lost 50 percent of her vision in both eyes. Kelly himself was elected United States Senator from Arizona in 2020.

  On the 22nd of January 2012, Giffords announced that she would resign so she could concentrate on her recovery, promising a return to public service someday. She submitted her resignation on the 25th of January on the floor of the House, where her colleagues and the House leadership paid tribute to her courage and strength.

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• 7. The Rhetoric Debate

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  On the eve of the shooting, Giffords had written to a Republican friend, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. "We need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down," she wrote.

  In March 2010, a campaign webpage run by Sarah Palin had shown a national election map with crosshairs over targeted congressional seats. One of them was Giffords's seat in Arizona's 8th district. Giffords voiced her concern shortly afterward, around the time her office was vandalized. "When people do that, they've got to realize that there are consequences to that action," she said. In that same interview, the interviewer observed that campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric had been interchangeable for years.

  After the shooting, the image came down from Palin's "takebackthe20" website. On the 12th of January, Palin released a video rejecting any responsibility beyond the gunman's own. She accused the press of manufacturing a "blood libel" against her and the right wing. No link was proven between the crosshairs map and the shooting, and it is unclear whether Loughner ever saw it.

  Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik pointed early to the political climate. "We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry," he said, describing Arizona as "the capital" of such feelings. Later, he said he had no evidence that the killings resulted from anything Loughner read or heard. The French newspaper Le Monde saw in the attack a confirmation of a long-growing fear that symbolic and verbal violence would lead to physical violence.

  President Obama called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy." Arizona Governor Jan Brewer called it "senseless and cruel violence." House Speaker John Boehner said an attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Chief Justice John Roberts noted that "we in the judiciary have suffered the terrible loss of one of our own." Foreign leaders also commented, among them British Prime Minister David Cameron and Cuba's Fidel Castro. Even the website GiffordsIsLying.com, run by Giffords's former opponent Jesse Kelly, was replaced with a single page urging support for her family.

  Commentators split on cause and blame. Howard Kurtz and Toby Harnden criticized what they saw as a rush to judgment about the gunman's motive. Paul Krugman argued that political rhetoric had become toxic. Keith Olbermann said he apologized for "any act or any thing in my past that may have even inadvertently encouraged violence." Jon Stewart said he did not know whether the climate contributed, but added that we had not "lost our capacity to be horrified."

  Policy proposals followed. Senator Chuck Schumer called for a fresh look at gun laws, including a ban on high-capacity magazines. Representative Peter T. King said he would introduce a bill banning firearms within 1000 feet of certain federal officials. Representative Carolyn McCarthy planned legislation to ban sales of high-capacity magazines to civilians.

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• 8. Mourning and Aftershocks

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  Five of the dead had died at the scene, and Christina-Taylor Green was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Nineteen people were shot in all, and a 14th person was injured subduing the gunman.

  Gabriel "Gabe" Zimmerman, 30, had served on Giffords's staff since 2006 as her community outreach director. He was the first Congressional staffer killed in the line of duty. John Roll, 63, was chief judge of the United States District Court for Arizona, appointed to the federal bench by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. Dorothy "Dot" Morris, 76, was a retired secretary from Oro Valley, and her husband George was wounded. Dorwan Stoddard, 76, a retired construction worker, was shot in the head, and his wife Mavy was wounded. Phyllis Schneck, 79, was a homemaker from Tucson.

  Christina-Taylor Green, 9, had come to the event with her neighbor Susan Hileman. Born on the 11th of September 2001, she appeared on page 41 of the book Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11. She was the granddaughter of former Major League Baseball player and manager Dallas Green. She loved politics and hoped to attend Penn State University, where she had a family connection through her grandfather. The university honored her with a brick on the Alumni Walk and a certificate in her memory.

  U.S. flags flown by the federal government stayed at half-staff from the 9th of January until sunset on the 15th. At 11:00 a.m. Eastern time on the 10th of January, a national moment of silence was held on the South Lawn of the White House and the steps of the Capitol. On the 12th of January, Obama traveled to Tucson, met the victims' families, visited Giffords at her bedside, and delivered a memorial speech that evening. The Safeway store reopened a week after the shooting, with a makeshift memorial near its front. At the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the first held in Arizona, Hernández threw the ceremonial first pitch, accompanied by the victims' families.

  On the night of the 11th of January, Governor Brewer signed emergency legislation banning protests within 300 feet of any funeral. The Westboro Baptist Church had announced plans to picket Green's funeral. Its leader, Fred Phelps, had released a video titled "Thank God for the Violent Shooter," and the congregation agreed to appear on talk radio in exchange for dropping the plan.

  Tension also flared at home. On Sunday, the 16th of January 2011, Vietnam War veteran James Eric Fuller, who had been shot in the knee in the attack, was arrested for disorderly conduct at a town hall meeting. He had criticized Palin and what he called a "Tea Party crime-syndicate" in an interview days earlier. Police said he took a picture of Tea Party figure Trent Humphries and shouted, "You're dead." Police committed Fuller to a medical facility for psychiatric evaluation.

  Senator Mark Udall of Colorado proposed that, for the 2011 State of the Union Address, members of both houses sit together regardless of party. One seat, he said, should be left empty in honor of Giffords.

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