Former U.S. Rep. Giffords visits Newtown

January 04, 2013 3:00 pm • Last Updated: January 04, 2013 10:50 pm

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, center, holds hands with her husband, Mark Kelly, while exiting Town Hall at Fairfield Hills Campus in Newtown, Conn. after meeting with Newtown First Selectman Pat Llodra and other officials on Friday, Jan. 4, 2013. At far left is Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman; behind Giffords to the left is U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Giffords also met with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is visiting the Connecticut town where a gunman massacred 26 people at an elementary school last month.

Sue Marcinek, an assistant to Newtown's first selectman, says the former Arizona congresswoman met Friday with the selectman, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman. She was accompanied by her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

A gunman killed 20 children and six educators during a Dec. 14 rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

Giffords was left partially blind, with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury, when a gunman opened fire at a constituent meet-and-greet outside a Tucson grocery store on Jan. 8, 2011. Arizona's chief federal judge and five others were killed and 12 people, in addition to Giffords, were wounded.

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