"Mr. Loughner is only four years older than my daughter and I am heartbroken for his parents," said Mary Reed, who was shot three times in front of her then-17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son. "Mr. Loughner ended my children's sense of safety in the world and the belief that people are essentially good."
"You took away my life, my love, my reason for living. You took away my Dory," Mavy Stoddard told Jared Lee Loughner at his sentencing Thursday. Her childhood sweetheart and husband, Dorwan Stoddard, died while shielding her from the gunfire. Mavy was shot three times.
"I do not hate you. I hate the act you performed," she said. "I forgive you; I have no choice as a Christian."
"You pointed a gun at me and shot me three times. I've wanted to take you by the shoulders and shake you and scream at you. As if it would help," Suzi Hileman told Loughner. Hileman took her neighbor, 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, to the shopping center that day. Christina-Taylor died in the shooting.
"There is very little that is inspiring or uplifting here," Hileman said.
"We have all come seeking something, a resolution, a closure. I come seeking peace," said Pam Simon, a former Giffords aide who was shot twice. "Jared, you did not choose this illness."
"Wonderful experiences are still clouded by that day. ... I doubt I will ever be able to think of Tucson and Arizona and not think of Jan. 8," said Sara Hummel Rajca, a former congressional aide to Gabrielle Giffords and a witness to the shootings who has since moved to South Carolina.
"This young man was treatable. If we really consider ourselves our brother's keeper, it's imperative that when we see somebody struggling, we try to help," said Randy Gardner, who was shot in the foot.
"Gabe Zimmerman was a champion for the mentally ill. How cruel that he was killed by someone he would have been eager to help," said Patricia Maisch, one of three citizens who helped restrain the gunman.
"Every day he (Loughner) awakes from his sleep, I need him to know where he is and why he's there. I need him to remember every day what he did," Maisch added.
Arizona Daily Star
"Today was a great day, because here we are 22 or 23 months later, and it's completed. "We would still like to do something that would prevent this from happening again."
Col. Bill Badger,
retired Army National Guard officer who was grazed in the head by a bullet and helped restrain the gunman
