Death Threat to Tea Party Member at Tucson Town Hall

The Tuscon ABC affiliate with the remarkably politically incorrect call sign of KGUN-9 reports:

The meeting room at St. Odilia’s Catholic Church on the city’s northwest side was packed with local dignitaries, witnesses to the mass shooting Jan. 8, some of the witnesses to the shootings and the first responders to the scene for a taping of an ABC-TV special, a town hall event, at 11 a.m. Saturday. Host of the program, This Week, is Christianne Amanpour. The show will air at 7 a.m. Sunday on KGUN9-TV.Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head at close range last Saturday by a lone gunman. She survived. A total of six people were killed. Nineteen were shot.

Jared Loughner, 22, a former Pima Community College student, is the sole suspect in the shootings. He is in FBI custody.

Toward the end of the town hall meeting Saturday morning, one of the shooting victims, J. Eric Fuller, took exception to comments by two of the speakers: Ariz. state Rep. Terri Proud, a Dist. 26 Republican, and Tucson Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries.

According to sheriff’s deputies at the scene, Fuller took a photo of Humphries and said, “You’re Dead.”

Deputies immediately escorted Fuller from the room.

Pima County Sheriff’s spokesman Jason Ogan said later Saturday that Fuller has been charged with threats and intimidation and he also will be charged with disorderly conduct.

Among the dignitaries at the town hall taping were Mayor Bob Walkup, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva and former Congressman Jim Kolbe.

ABC News dubbed the town hall, “After the Tragedy:  An American Conversation Continued.”

As we’ve been seeing for the last week, that’s some conversation.

As blogger Cubachi writes, Fuller “blamed Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and other conservatives a few days ago for inspiring the shooter to kill 9 people and injure others.”

“Now it seems that Fuller is the one making threats,” Cubachi adds.

Update: Just yesterday on Patterico’s blog, Aaron Worthing noted what Fuller said last Saturday night, in the immediate wake of the shooting:

“It looks like Palin, Beck, Sharron Angle and the rest got their first target,” Eric Fuller, a former campaigner for Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, told Democracy Now. “Their wish for Second Amendment activism has been fulfilled.”

Worthing adds that such language is “risible in many ways, but notice what he doesn’t say:”

He doesn’t say he presently blames Palin, Beck, and so on for the attack.  He is saying he did Saturday night.  And of course that was the same night that Sheriff Nifong Dupnick was making his own intemperate remarks.  So is it reasonable for the Mr. Fuller to have believed law enforcement on that issue on that night?  Of course it is.

But you never hear them ask the obvious follow up question: do you still feel this way?  And if you look at the rest of the report, created today, it is obvious that these people are completely dishonest.  They have deliberately skewed every other piece of evidence to indict the right wing, leaving out every piece of evidence that might exonerate their targets.  Why should we think they presented this man’s entire statement?  For all we know, he might have said this, “yeah, I was really mad that night at the Tea Party and all that.  And now I am angry at Dipshit Dupnick for putting out that kind of wild speculation.  I feel manipulated.”

Now that the story has gone halfway around the world, who knows how he might amend that statement?

Well, now we know.

Update: Today at Newsbusters, Tom Blumer writes, “Demonstrating impressive prescience, John Hayward at Human Events predicted on Friday that Fuller would attempt to capitalize on his being among the injured in last Saturday’s Tucson murders.”