Tucson Shooting: Funeral For Nine-Year-Old

12:37am UK, Thursday January 13, 2011

Lulu Sinclair, Sky News Online

The funeral is taking place of Christina-Taylor Green, the nine-year-old who was one of six people who died in the Tucson shooting on Saturday.

The nine-year-old was born on 9/11, the day the twin towers were attacked

The little girl was born on September 11, 2001, the day of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.

"It does say something about our society that my daughter was born on a tragic day, and she went out on a tragic day," her father John said earlier, fighting back tears.

The dark-haired, brown-eyed third-grader was one of 50 babies born on that date featured in a book called "Faces of Hope."

She had gone to the Tucson shopping mall with a neighbour to meet congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in a critical condition after being shot in the head.

We made breakfast and said goodbye, saying: 'I love you daddy.' So beautiful - we had nine beautiful years with her.

John Green, father

Christina-Taylor was recently elected to the Mesa Verde Elementary School student council and had been interested in politics from a young age, said her father, who works as a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.

"She was a good speaker. I could have easily seen her as a politician," he told his local newspaper.

Christina-Taylor, her mother Roxanna said, also enjoyed singing in a church choir and earlier last year received her first Holy Communion as a Roman Catholic.

"She was all about helping people, and being involved. It's so tragic. She went to learn and then someone with so much hatred in their heart took the lives of innocent people."

Christina-Taylor had an 11-year-old brother named Dallas, with whom she loved to go swimming, the mother added.

Her father John Green talked of the last time he saw his daughter on Saturday morning, just before she left for the political event.

Christina-Taylor with her parents and older brother Dallas

"We made breakfast and said goodbye, saying: 'I love you daddy.' So beautiful - we had nine beautiful years with her."

Politicians in Arizona have approved an emergency law to stop members of a fundamentalist Kansas church from picketing the funeral service.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church had declared their plan to picket the service because ''God sent the shooter to deal with idolatrous America''.

But a spokesman said church members would not protest at the funeral in exchange for airtime on two radio stations.

The church founder, Fred Phelps, had declared "God hates Catholics." Christina-Taylor's family are Catholic.