Friend: ‘Something snapped’ in shooter
The Illinois man who sprayed an Alexandria, Va., ball field with gunfire, injuring a GOP congressman and three others, held passionate — if not obsessive — antiRepublican views and had traveled to the Washington, D.C., area just months earlier to “protest,” according to authorities and a long-time friend.
James T. Hodgkinson, 66, was living out of his car and apparently not working when authorities said he opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball team practice. Among the wounded was Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority whip, and police say they later shot and killed Hodgkinson before recovering a handgun and a rifle.
“He’s not anti-police, he’s not anti-America. But something snapped in him and it changed who he was,” a friend of Hodgkinson told the Herald. “I think it’s the current political status of his country: If you’re not one side, you’re on the other. I think he fell into all of that.”
The man, who spoke to the Herald on the condition of anonymity, said he’d already received death threats online because of his association with Hodgkinson.
He described the former home inspector as passionate about politics before something changed last election, when his support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders became “obsessive.” He left his stunned family behind in Belleville, Ill., for Virginia, with the expectation he’d eventually return. It continued a pattern of him breaking away from others.
“He left after the election to protest, to go to D.C.,” the friend said. “We used to kind of talk about politics a lot. When the election happened, that broke off. Same thing happened with some of his friends and family.”
But he said he never thought Hodgkinson was capable of a shooting, saying he never was violent.
“It was like finding out Santa Claus beat Ms. Claus,” he said. “You wouldn’t expect that.”
Police records and Hodgkinson’s own writing and social media accounts paint a man with fervid anti-Republican views and a checkered past marked by run-ins with police. He posted regularly on Facebook, where his profile — which has since been deleted — included a picture of Bernie Sanders, who acknowledged Hodgkinson volunteered on his presidential campaign. He was also listed as a member of several anti-Republican groups, including one called “Terminate the Republican Party.”
In March, apparently shortly before he traveled to Virginia, Hodgkinson fired an estimated 50 shots into trees near his home before a neighbor alerted the local sheriff’s department, according to a police report.
Police said Hodgkinson had a valid gun license, but an officer at the scene told him to shoot safely, given the nearby homes. The 66-yearold told the officer he would, according to police.
According to Hodgkinson’s hometown paper, the Belleville News-Democrat, his family was struck by tragedy in 1996 when their 17-year-old foster daughter committed suicide by dousing herself in gasoline and setting herself on fire.
In 2002, the paper said, the Hodgkinsons assumed legal guardianship of their 12-year-old great niece.
Four years later, Hodgkinson was accused of punching a woman in the face, pointing a gun at another man’s face and dragging a girl, identified as his daughter, from a home. Police said he also fired a shotgun, apparently into the air.
During the incident, he was accused of grabbing his daughter’s hair and “throwing (her) around the bedroom.” When she tried to escape with another woman, Hodgkinson stopped the car, and cut his daughter’s seat belt off with a pocket knife, according to the report. Hodgkinson was charged with battery, but the charges were later dismissed.