The video you’ve just seen is only one of the live broadcasts aired by DR Broadcasting including a live satellite broadcast into which I added a view from another of our cameras showing the setup.
Just a week into her third term, U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was a victim of an assassination attempt in Tucson at the hands of gunman Jared Lee Loughner at a Safeway supermarket where she was meeting publicly with constituents. Loughner shot Giffords in the head with a thirty-three round magazine Glock pistol. He also shot twenty-four others, killing six people, including federal judge John Roll and a 9-year-old child before being disarmed, arrested, and charged with murder and attempted murder.
This horrendous event occurred at 10:10 am. Key Productions was contacted by the European DR Broadcasting network at 2:00 pm to setup news coverage, including satellite transmissions, for their reporter who was flying into Tucson at 4:20 pm. This assignment continued for 9 days.
While waiting to meet their reporter at the scene of the incident, which was already wall to wall satellite trucks, I learned the name of the assailant and researched his address which happened to be in an area I knew. Upon arrival of the DR Network reporter I convinced him the first step was to do a stand-up at the assailants home before the Sheriffs Department closed it down. As we finished taping this stand-up the Sheriffs Department did indeed close the street as seen in one of the following photos…and we beat the local stations to that important location. The next day I also sold raw “B” roll footage of the home to CNN which ran it along with photos of the assailant for several days during their ongoing coverage.
One year later, after a miraculous recovery, Congresswoman Giffords, her husband Mark Kelly and her trauma surgeon Dr. Peter Rhee spoke at a celebration at the University of Arizona. Congresswoman Giffords spoke some of her first words in public since the shooting by repeating the Pledge of Allegiance along with the audience of thousands. Again, Key Productions covered this event for the European networks. An edited version of that coverage is shown below.
To bring this story full circle, for me at least, Christmas 2018 I was involved with the Tucson Mayor and Santa Claus at a children’s event in downtown Tucson when I was surprised by Congresswoman Giffords who was interested in the European coverage of her tragedy. We spoke, and took this picture. She’s an amazing woman.
