Giffords Shootings: the Poisonous Fruit of Arizona's Vicious Politics

Hundreds gathered Saturday night at a candlelight vigil at the Tucson University Medical Center, were U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and at least 10 other people were being treated for gunshot wounds in a savage attack that left six dead and the nation sickened and stunned.

The marchers held signs reading “Gabrielle we are with you,” “Tucson, we love you,” and “Peace will prevail.” Delayla Herrera was among the Tucson residents who joined in prayer for the dead and wounded and their families, even though she didn’t know any of them personally. 

“It’s painful because I have a daughter and a son, and this is something I wouldn’t want to happen to them,” Herrera said. “There was an innocent child that died just for being there,” she added, referring to 9-year-old Christina Taylor-Green, who had gone with a neighbor to meet Giffords and was killed in the attack. Christina, recently elected to her school’s student council, was born on Sept. 11, 2001.

Giffords, 40, a three-term moderate Democrat from Tucson, was shot point-blank in the head Saturday morning when at least one assailant opened fire outside a Safeway where the congresswoman was meeting with constituents. Doctors said the bullet went through Giffords’s brain, leaving her in critical condition, but they expressed optimism about her chances of survival.

In addition to Christina, the dead included John Roll, the chief federal judge for the state of Arizona, and Gabe Zimmerman, a former social worker who served as Giffords' director of community outreach. Also killed were 76-year-old Dorthy Murray, 76-year-old Dorwin Stoddard, and 79-year-old Phyllis Scheck, investigators said.

A shaken President Barack Obama called the shooting an "unspeakable tragedy," adding: “Such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society."

"I am sickened by the horrific attack in Tucson today and saddened by this senseless violence,"  Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, another Democrat from the Tucson area, said in a statement issued to the press. "This is a tragedy for Arizona, our nation, and our democracy. Gabrielle never let fear or intimidation prevent her from serving the people of Arizona. My thoughts and prayers are with Congresswoman Giffords, her husband Mark, her staff, all those who were injured, and their families."

Giffords, like Grijalva, narrowly won re-election in November against a Tea Party candidate furious over the passage of Obama’s health care law and Democrats' opposition to Arizona's anti-immigrant laws. According to the Associated Press, during the campaign, her opponent, Jesse Kelly, held fundraisers "where he urged supporters to help remove Giffords from office by joining him to shoot a fully loaded M-16 rifle." Kelly is a former Marine who served in Iraq and was pictured on his website in military gear holding his automatic weapon and promoting the event.

Fury over Giffords’s position occasionally turned violent, with her Tucson office vandalized and someone showing up at a recent gathering with a weapon Law enforcement officials said members of Congress reported 42 cases of threats or violence in the first three months of 2010, nearly three times the 15 cases reported during the same period a year earlier. Nearly all dealt with the health care bill, the Associated Press reported. 

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik blamed the shooting on the poisonous political rhetoric that has consumed the country, much of it centered in Arizona and fanned by a series of hard-line anti-immigration bills by lawmakers in the state, including SB 1070 and a new proposal to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.