Ball field becomes battlefield as gunman fires at lawmakers
WASHINGTON - One congressman thought it was a car backfiring. A senator saw gravel kick up and thought nothing of it. A photographer saw a man with a long gun but wondered why someone would be hunting near a baseball field.
Then the horror became clear: After being told that the players on the suburban Virginia field were the Republican congressional baseball team practicing for an annual charity game, a gunman who had nursed grievances against President Donald Trump and the GOP opened fire Wednesday morning around 7 a.m. He shot dozens of rounds and injured five people, including House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, before being killed by police.
Scalise was shot in the hip while playing second base. He underwent surgery at Med Star Washington Hospital Center and was in critical condition. But his office said he was in good spirits.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump visited him in the hospital
Wednesday night.
A ball field became a battlefield, and reignited the military training of some of the players, with one describing how he “Army crawled” his way to safety while another, a former combat surgeon, worked to treat the wounded.
“I was closer than I cared to be, I don’t know of anybody who was close,” said Rep. Trent Kelly of Mississippi, who was playing third base and according to several witnesses was missed by the shooter’s first shot. The players all ran for safety, Kelly said “except for the Capitol Police, who were steadily engaging this guy. ... They were not retreating, they were protecting those that they were paid to protect in a heroic fashion.”
With shots coming from outside the fence near the third-base dugout, scrambling players dove for cover in the firstbase dugout.
“There were ultimately about 12 of us in that dugout, and a few more would come every few minutes, including one of the staff members who had been shot when he was in center field, he made it in,” Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona told CNN.
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the manager of the team, had his two sons with him. One of them hid under an SUV and another sheltered in the dugout, Barton said.
“There were dozens, if not hundreds, of shots fired,” Barton said. “It was scary.”
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee said he was leaving practice and walking along the thirdbase line when he heard a barrage of gunfire.
“We didn’t know exactly know where the shots were coming from. But it was loud, it was constant, so I actually ran and jumped into the dugout, that’s when I got scuffed up,” he said. “There was a child in the dugout, because children come out and watch us play . ... Fortunately the Capitol Police were able to return fire and at least stop the shooter from moving forward, because we were like sitting ducks in the dugout.”
Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, the third-base coach for the team, had one of his aides, Zack Barth, shagging fly balls in the outfield. Barth was shot in the leg.
“I heard the first shot, and I wasn’t sure, I thought it was the backfire of a car. But then the second and the third, and everybody yelled, ‘He’s got a gun, run for cover.’ And that’s what I did,” Williams said.
Williams dove into the dugout “like diving into a swimming pool with no water.” Barth reached it a few seconds after Williams did, and landed in the congressman’s arms.
“He held me, I held him. Jeff Flake took his belt off and made a tourniquet around Zack’s leg to stop the bleeding. I remember, Chuck Fleischmann was on the phone to 911 screaming to hurry up and get there. Jack Barton, Joe’s son, was in the dugout with us and we were all taking care of him. Just trying to take care of each other. There was a lot of heroes here,” Williams said.
Alexandria, Va., police said the call of an active shooter came in at 7:09 a.m. and responders arrived within three minutes. Numerous members of Congress praised the response by two Capitol Police officers who served on the protection detail for Scalise, one of whom was shot in the ankle as they exchanged gunfire with the alleged shooter, James Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill.
Hodgkinson, a home inspector, had several minor run-ins with the law in recent years and belonged to a Facebook group called “Terminate the Republican Party.” He had been living out of his van in the Alexandria area in recent months, the FBI said.
Rep. Mike Bishop of Michigan said he was standing near home plate when the first shot missed Kelly, who immediately started moving toward home plate, saying there was a shooter.
“At first it was kind of an explosion ... because of the acoustics, it sounded like a bomb went off . ... It didn’t set until the second shot” what was going on, Bishop said.
In the House, proceedings were canceled, and Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California issued calls for unity. “An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” Ryan said, to prolonged applause.