Rep. Giffords leads Pledge at Tucson vigil
TUCSON — Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, using her left hand to lift her right hand to her heart, led a crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance Sunday at a candlelight vigil marking the deadly rampage one year ago that shook a community and shocked a nation.
Her words were clear and cheered by the crowd of about 3,500 people at the University of Arizona.
The evening vigil capped a day of events to remember the shooting at Giffords’s meet-and-greet at a grocery store outside Tucson that left six people dead, including 9-yearold Christina-taylor Green and a federal judge. Thirteen others were wounded, including the Democratic congresswoman.
It has been a year of reflecting on lives shattered, of struggling with flashbacks and nightmares, of replaying the what-ifs before the gun- man’s attack.
Gifford’s husband, Mark Kelly, told the crowd that Tucson would not be defined by the shooting, but by the community’s strength in the days and months afterward.
As the vigil concluded, the crowd chanted, “Gabby, Gabby, Gabby.”
Many throughout this community began the day by ringing bells at 10:11 a.m., the exact time the gunman shot Giffords in the head and moved down a line of people waiting to talk to her.
At a Tucson cathedral, girls in white dresses and red sashes danced down the aisle as a song called Hero in the Dark played, and a pastor called on everyone to celebrate the lives of those lost and those who acted heroically during the shooting.
The names of all six killed were read as a bell rang for each of them, and their family members and survivors placed red roses in a vase at the front of the church. “We remember, we remember, we remember with grateful hearts,” the group chanted.
Roger Salzgeber wrestled the gunman that day, and he came to the Safeway early Sunday where the shooting occurred. He sat at the picnic table near where it happened, sipping coffee, dressed for a motorcycle ride, shrugging his shoulders.
“Tomorrow, I’m leaving this all behind me,” he said. “I’ve spent the year looking in the rearview mirror, and I’m not looking in that mirror anymore.”