Federal prosecutors on Friday announced new charges against the suspect in the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, accusing him of killing six people and wounding 13 others who were exercising the fundamental American “right to meet freely, openly and peaceably with their member of Congress.”
U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke called the 49-count indictment returned Thursday against Jared Lee Loughner “comprehensive and is solid, and covers all the murdered and injured victims” who were at the political event held by Giffords outside a Tucson grocery store.
“There are no distinctions at all between the victims,” Burke said, adding that they “were exercising one of the most precious and fundamental rights of American citizens.”
The indictment charged Loughner in the murders of U.S. District Judge John Roll and Giffords aide Gabe Zimmerman. Four other people who were not federal workers also died in the Jan. 8 attack, including a 9-year-old girl, and 13 others were wounded.
He also was charged with causing the death of a participant at a federally provided activity; injuring a participant at a federally provided activity; and using a gun in a crime of violence, stemming from the wounding of 10 people who didn’t work for the federal government.
It is easy to forget, with all of the publicity surrounding Gabby Giffords, that there were actually nineteen victims of Loughner's shooting spree, and that six of them lost their lives that day.
I will be interested to learn exactly what set this damaged individual on a course of mayhem and destruction. We have discussed the possibilities, including possibly hate speech and anti-government rhetoric, but we really do not yet have a definitive answer.
Personally I would like one, even though it will never be a compelling enough reason to explain how somebody could do what he did that terrible day in January.
