POST
Tucson
Tuesday March 1st, 2011
We’re continuing our little tour of American news, and today brings us to Tucson. Phoenix-based photographer Andy Delisle has just written about the day after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot. That day, on assignment for Stern Magazine, Andy took pictures at the hospital for the morning press conference, the Safeway where the shooting happened, the shooter’s parents’ house, and Giffords’ office.
I asked Andy to tell me some more about the experience.
I was only down in Tucson for the day so I didn’t have a lot of time to dive deeply into everything. I did talk to a lot of people. Many didn’t know Congresswoman Giffords, but several did. One of the more touching stories I heard was from Tim Sulton and his fiancée Melanie Hannes. Sulton ran for Giffords’ house seat and lost the previous election before Giffords was elected. Both were personal friends of Gabrielle. A couple days before the shooting they received a letter from Giffords congratulating them on their engagement.
It was a long emotional day. It’s very sad that someone who is so inspiring and I would love to one day meet was shot. I’ve been following her recovery with more interest then I usually do a news topic.
-Asad
Everyone in political circles – both sides of the aisle – in AZ loves Gabi and was deeply affected by this event. As a former AZ Legislature political staffer turned OKC photographer I was struck by the parallels between the reactions to the OKC Bombing and the Tucson Shooting, and as fate would have it, photographed the Bombing Memorial the night before Gabi was shot. I wrote about the two events the following week on my blog. http://hollybaumannphotography.blogspot.com/2011/01/history-repeats-itself-in-ok-az-re.html Wishing Gabi well!