I don’t know where I read or heard that the judge was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. (I think my husband told me, and I don’t know if he heard it or read it.) The judge goes to Mass every day. He usually goes downtown to Mass. He was running late yesterday and went to Mass at a church near where the shooting occurred. He stopped at Safeway to see his good friend, Gabby Giffords, when he saw the sign for the event. It was a coincidence that he showed up and was killed.
That is correct, petitfour. The Judge was not scheduled to be there so it was nothing more than a terrible coincidence.
How do we know the judge wasn’t being followed? Maybe the rally and the killers writings were part of a set up to make Gifford look like the intended target.
What you said about the judge is what the sheriff said at his cranky press conference yesterday.
As for the speculation about who the shooter’s target was, I think they assume it was the congresswoman because he went straight to her and shot her first.
Also, she was identifiable at the event. The judge was just a bystander, not there in any official capacity.
And the Judge could very well have been followed.