The Phoenix Sun

A drum circle was part of a candlelight vigil held this evening at the Arizona statehouse grounds

Several hundred people gathered on the Arizona statehouse grounds in Phoenix for a candlelight vigil tonight after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded in Tucson by a gunman who shot seventeen people after the assassination attempt on Giffords. Six people died in the shooting, including Federal District Judge John M. Roll, and nine-year-old Christina Greene.

Giffords remains in intensive care at a Tucson hospital tonight after undergoing surgery for a single gunshot wound to the head.

Earlier today, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told reporters, “When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government…the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

Tucson is in Pima County.

Above is raw video I shot in October 2009 while accompanying Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on a tour of new solar installations at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. I never posted (or edited) this segment, but decided to put it up now, because it shows an important aspect of what makes Gabby unique. She’s tweeting about the new solar panels on a rooftop we just saw and talks about why twitter is important to her — because it allows her to communicate directly with her constituents, unedited and unsupervised by staff.

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at ASU, 2009

Gabby Giffords tweeting while touring solar installations at ASU, Tempe, 2009 (Photo: The Phoenix Sun)

A doctor at the University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, who operated on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords this afternoon said that she was responding to commands before the surgery and that he is “about as optimistic as I can be in this situation.”

A nine-year-old girl was among the dead after a gunman shot Giffords once in the head at a political “meet-and-greet” and then opened fire on people standing nearby.