Drove 820 miles for his vendetta Volunteered in Sanders campaign

HE WAS deeply opinionated, heavily armed and extremely dangerous.

The rifle-toting shooter killed by police after opening fire on two dozen Republican members of Congress at a baseball field was a rabid critic of President Trump — and traveled to Virginia in March — three months before his failed attempt at mass murder.

James Hodgkinson, a former home inspector from Belleville, Ill., divided his time in Alexandria, Va., between the local YMCA near the field and living in the white cargo van that he drove 820 miles to the Washington suburb. The van was neat and darkened inside by curtains and window shades.

Authorities said Hodgkinson spent much of his time within walking distance of the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park, where Hodgkinson made his final stand around 7 a.m. Wednesday.

While cops declined to provide a motive in the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R—La.) and three others, the 66-year-old brought along a resume of liberal activism and anti-Trump rhetoric on his journey.

Photos show he kept a white poster inside the van with a cartoon image of Trump. It read: “Chicken in Chief.”

He belonged to a Facebook group with the foreboding name “Terminate the Republican Party.” And one of his Facebook postings three months ago took direct aim at President Trump: “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump and Co.”

A 2015 post actually mentioned Scalise, the lone Congressman wounded in the shooting spree.

“Here’s a Republican that should lose his job, but they gave him a raise,” read Hodgkinson’s critique.

Neighbor Fred Widel recalled Tom, as the shooter was known to friends, as a good-natured fellow who hosted an annual Halloween party with his wife.

“He was spunky, joking,” said Widel, adding that Hodgkinson retired about six months ago. “(I’m) freaked out to know someone capable of doing what he did, and not having a clue.”

Word spread quickly among the neighbors in their town of 42,000, and Widel said he went on the internet to see if the rumors were true.

“I got online,” he said, “and I saw Tom’s picture.”

According to Hodgkinson’s brother Michael, the Illinois resident traveled to the East Coast to protest against the Trump Administration.

The senior citizen was unhappy with the November election results, but his sibling told The New York Times that the violent explosion just outside the nation’s capital was out of character for Hodgkinson. “Totally out of the blue,” he said. Hodgkinson was one of the many volunteers backing the campaign of liberal presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders — who repudiated the slain man’s support after the Wednesday shooting.

Hodgkinson lived with his wife and their dogs in the cozy southern Illinois town across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

A media horde descended Wednesday on his home, with cars parked along a stretch of country road. FBI and ATF agents appeared in force, scouring his home for any clues to what sparked the rampage.

The Belleville News-Democrat, his hometown paper, reported that Hodgkinson grew up in town with two siblings. He was a varsity wrestler at the local high school, and stayed in town when other relatives left Belleville.

The newspaper was often the recipient of Hodgkinson’s fiery letters to the editor, inevitably espousing his left-leaning politics.

Between 2010-12, the NewsDemocrat published nearly two dozen Hodgkinson missives invoking the Great Depression and suggesting the Republican Party’s policies could bring it back.

“I don’t envy the rich,” he ranted in a May 14, 2010, letter. “I despise the way they have bought our politicians and twisted our laws to their benefit.”

In a pair of 2011 letters, he blasted Congress and hailed the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park.

“Let’s get back to the good old days, when our representatives had a backbone and a conscience,” he declared.

A pair of regulars at the YMCA in Alexandria said Hodgkinson became a daily presence, hanging out but never working out.

Stephen Brennwald recalled how Hodgkinson just stared out the window from an area overlooking the baseball field.

The GOP baseball team recently began daily 6 a.m. practices in preparation for their annual charity game against the Democratic House team after he arrived.

“I would try to chat him up and say stuff, but he never looked back at me,” said Brennwald. “Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I can see how the guy was troubled, but at the time I thought he was working.”

Ex-Alexandria mayor Bill Eurille told The Washington Post that he spoke almost daily with Hodgkinson at the YMCA — and that the out-of-towner appeared to carry all his belongings inside a gym bag.

The FBI said the shooter was living out of his vehicle on East Monroe St., which runs alongside the baseball stadium.

Fellow Democrat Eurille said he tried to help the visitor land a job, but that Hodgkinson rejected some possibilities by saying he didn’t have a bachelor’s degree.

The former mayor said their conversations often centered on restaurants or politics. They often agreed.

Hodgkinson’s final odyssey