Former
Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords looked in the eyes of the man who shot
her today and, through her husband, said she is now "done thinking about
you."
Giffords
was sitting in the second row of the courtroom with her husband, ex-astronaut
Mark Kelly and she stretched to get a better view of Jared Loughner when he
entered the courtroom.
She later
stood alongside her husband astronaut Mark Kelly to deliver a victim impact
statement. She was one of several of Loughner's victims who spoke about the day
when he opened fire at one of Giffords street corner meetings, killing six and
injuring 13.
Speaking
on her behalf, Kelly addressed Loughner and both and he and his wife, known as
Gabby, faced Loughner. The formrer congresswoman has difficulty speaking and is
partially paralyzed because of her head wound.
"You
may have put a bullet through her head, but you haven't put a dent in her
spirit," Kelly told Loughner.
Kelly kept
telling Loughner, "Jared, pay attention to this" during his
statement.
"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.
Following
the sentencing hearing, Kelly gave an exclusive interview to ABC's Diane
Sawyer, in which he said he and Giffords now had "some sense of
resolution. Not exactly closure, but it is resolution."
Loughner,
he said, was "a little defiant in the way looking at us and looking at
Gabby. I got the sense he was trying to intimidate us, especially my
wife."
Giffords
stared into Loughner's eyes while her husband addressed the court.
"She
stared into his eyes the entire time. I saw a person [Loughner] who certainly
has major mental illness, but who knew where he was and why he was there,"
Kelly said.
Loughner,
24, was given seven life prison sentences without parole plus 140 years. He pleaded
guilty in a deal that allowed him to avoid the possibility of a death sentence.
Click
HERE, for Mark Kelly's full statement. Kelly saved some of his ire for
Arizona's politicians calling their leadership "lacking" and Gov. Jan
Brewer "feckless," for their refusal to address gun control. The
state legislature, he said, named an official state hand gun just weeks after
the shooting.
Before
concluding his statement in court, Kelly also said to Loughner, "Know
this, Gabby and I are done thinking about you."
Several
other of Loughner's victims also gave emotional statements in court this
morning about how Loughner's shooting spree impacted their lives.
"You
pointed a weapon at me and shot me," Susie Hidelman, who was shot three
times while trying to save her 9-year-old neighbor, told Loughner in court this
morning. "I will walk out of this courtroom and into my life and I will
not think of you again," she said.
Mavy
Stoddard, who was shot three times and whose husband collapsed on top of her
after being shot, said: "When you shot my precious husband Dorwans
Stoddard, you ruined my life."
"Somehow,
when you shot him, I got out from under him. ... I was screaming, 'Oh God, oh
God, help me,'" she said. "I said to him, 'Breathe deeply,' and he
did. Therefore, I believe that he heard me say, 'I love you.'"
"You
took away my life my love my reason for living," she told a rapt
courtroom.
Loughner
chose not to speak at today's hearing. When asked by Judge Larry Burn if he
understood he has a right to make a statement, Loughner responded "Yes,
sir" in a long monotone.
Following
the shooting, Loughner was diagnosed with schizophrenia and is under orders to
forcibly receive anti-psychotic medication.
Many of
the victims welcomed his decision to accept a federal plea bargain and avoid a
lengthy trial. It remains unknown whether state prosecutors will try him anyway
and seek the death penalty.
Loughner
is currently being held at a prison medical facility in Missouri.
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