Flags in the U.S. Virgin Islands will fly at half staff this week as a mark of respect for the victims of Saturday’s shooting in Tucson, Az.
Saturday a gunman, identified by police as 22-year-old Jared Loughner, approached a "Congress in Your Neihborhood" gathering at a Tucson Safeway Supermarket and opened fire with a handgun with an extended clip.
Federal Judge John Roll was killed, as well as a 9-year-old girl and four others. They were six of the approximately 19 people who were shot in the melee. Loughner was wrestled to the ground as he was attempting to reload his weapon. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was hosting the event and who was apparently Loughner’s principal target, was shot through the head, and is in critical condition in a Tucson hospital. Doctors are reportedly cautiously optimistic, saying the Arizona Democrat is concious and able to respond to them.
Delegate to Congress Donna M. Christensen, the territory’s representative to Congress, said she was extremely saddened at the news of the shooting.
“I want to ask the entire Virgin Islands community to pray for Congresswoman Giffords and those that were killed or wounded in Arizona on Saturday,” she said. “My church, the Moravian Church, offered prayers on Sunday as I suspect churches around the territory and the country did as well."
"What I know of Congresswoman Giffords is that she is a fighter," Christensen said of her Democratic colleage. "She had a tough race, and by sheer force of her hard work and her personality she was able to pull out a victory in November when many others were not able to."
Gov. John de Jongh, Jr. issued the flag order Sunday, consistent with a White House proclamation in which President Barack Obama ordered all U.S. flags to be flown at half staff. Both the United States and Virgin Islands flags on all public buildings and grounds in the territory will be flown at half staff until sunset Friday.
Under U.S. Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, which deals with the position and display of the flag, subsection 7 says that when a flag is flown at half staff it should first be briefly raised to the top of the flagpole, then lowered halfway. Similarly, when lowering a flag that is at half staff, it should be raised to the top, then brought down.
