January Eighth, Two Thousand Eleven

The Safeway at East Ina Road and North Oracle Road in Casas Adobes was a routine congressional event venue on the morning of January eighth, two thousand eleven. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was holding one of her regular Congress on Your Corner constituent meetings in the parking lot. Several dozen people had come.

At ten ten in the morning, a twenty-two-year-old Tucson man named Jared Lee Loughner opened fire. He shot Giffords in the head at close range and continued firing until a bystander tackled him while he attempted to reload.

Six people were killed. Christina-Taylor Green was nine years old, born on September eleventh, two thousand one, and had come because she had just been elected to her school's student council and wanted to meet her congresswoman. John Roll was sixty-three, the chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, who had stopped by after attending morning church. Dorothy Morris was seventy-six. Phyllis Schneck was seventy-nine. Dorwan Stoddard was seventy-six, and died shielding his wife from the gunfire. Gabe Zimmerman was thirty years old, Giffords' community outreach director, engaged to be married.

Thirteen others were wounded. Giffords survived after emergency surgery and underwent years of rehabilitation. She resigned from Congress in January of two thousand twelve to focus on her recovery, and in the years that followed became a prominent advocate for gun legislation, founding the organization Giffords alongside her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who was subsequently elected to the United States Senate from Arizona.

Loughner pleaded guilty in August of two thousand twelve to nineteen federal charges and was sentenced to life in federal prison without the possibility of parole.

The memorial to the six people killed stands near the Safeway. Christina-Taylor Green's name is among them.