Gunman who shot Gabrielle Giffords handed life sentence
Ex-congresswoman and husband face Loughner in court for first time since shooting massacre left six dead and wounded 12 in Arizona in 2011
Mark Kelly stared at the young man who, nearly two years ago, brought a gun to a Tucson plaza in the US state of Arizona and shot Kelly's wife in the head and killed six people.
The attack left Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman, partially blind, unable to use her right arm and struggling to piece together sentences, Kelly told a federal judge on Thursday during the gunman's sentencing. Jared Lee Loughner also wounded a dozen more outside a grocery store where Giffords had been shaking hands with constituents.
"You tried to create for all of us a world as dark and evil as your own. But know this, and remember it always: you failed," Kelly said. As he spoke, Giffords stood silently next to him, a symbol of resilience.
Loughner, 24, was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison without parole for the rampage. US District Judge Larry Burns said that, although Loughner has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, he understood the potential consequences of the attack and even searched online for information about the death penalty beforehand. Prosecutors decided not to seek a death sentence at the behest of the survivors and the families of those killed, said assistant US Attorney Wallace Kleindienst, according to media accounts. "What you did was wrong," Kleindienst said, "but they felt it wasn't right to execute a man with a mental illness."
On a blue-skied morning on January 8 last year, Loughner fired nearly three dozen shots into a crowd waiting to meet the Democratic congresswoman at a meet-and-greet in Tucson. Amid the chaos, passers-by wrestled Loughner to the ground. After the shooting, Loughner was sent to a federal prison hospital and underwent forcible psychotropic drug treatments.
"My children will forever remember the smell of blood everywhere," Mary Reed, who was shot in the arm that day, told the judge. "Mr Loughner introduced my children to something sinister and evil."
A gravely wounded Giffords resigned from Congress earlier this year, after making an emotional public appearance in Tucson exactly one year after the rampage. When Giffords hoisted her right hand to her heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance in a clear, strong voice, the crowd of thousands wept and cheered.
