Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Work resumes at quieter Capitol
Hurt Scalise, lobbyist still hospitalized
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol got back to business Thursday as law enforcement officials continued to investigate Wednesday’s shooting at a Virginia ball field that injured GOP
House Whip
Steve Scalise and four others.
La te Thursday, MedStar Washington Hospital Center reported that Scalise, 51, remained in critical condition after surgery earlier in the day related to internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg. The hospital said his condition had improved over a period of 24 hours.
Investigators studying Wednesday’s attack on GOP lawmakers at an Alexandria, Va., park said James Hodgkinson had obtained his rifle and handgun from licensed firearms dealers. Capitol Police officials said
they had “no evidence to suggest that the purchases were not lawful.” Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., was a home inspector who had been living out of his van near the park. He had a social media page filled with criticism of Republicans and the Trump administration. He died Wednesday after Capitol Police officers in Scalise’s security detail returned fire as Hodgkinson shot at the lawmakers playing baseball.
In Illinois, Hodgkinson’s wife said her husband went to Washington because he wanted to work on tax policy.
“I had no idea this was going to happen, and I don’t know what to say about it. I can’t wrap my head around it,” Sue Hodgkinson said.
The FBI said Thursday that it was investigating the shooter’s “activities and social media impressions in the months leading up to” the attack. Authorities also were going over a cellphone, computer and camera taken from Hodgkinson’s white van, which was found parked near the ball field.
Colleagues who visited Scalise at a Washington hospital sounded generally upbeat about his condition Thursday, but they spoke in terms of hope for his recovery rather than outright conf idence about it.
Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond, who like Scalise is from Louisiana, said — as many others did — that Scalise is a fighter. “I’m prayerful he will pull through, and I hope he does,” he said.
The hospital said Thursday night that Scalise “will require additional operations, and will be in the hospital for some time.”
In addition to Scalise, four other people were hurt in Wednesday’s shooting. Capitol Police Special Agent David Bailey, Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner and House GOP aide Zack Barth were treated and released from hospitals. Tyson Foods lobbyist Matt Mika’s condition was upgraded Thursday afternoon from critical to serious, according to a statement from George Washington University Hospital where Mika has been hospitalized since the shooting.
Scalise was fielding ground balls at second base Wednesday when he was shot as Republicans practiced for the annual Republicans-Democrats charity baseball game. Richmond, who plays for the Democratic team, said he had visited the hospital twice and planned to go again before the ballgame Thursday night at Nationals Park.
The game is a century-old ritual as Republicans and Democrats join in friendly rivalry.
On Thursday night, Bailey received a standing ovation from the game-record crowd of 24,959 people as he threw out the first pitch. “ONE FAMILY,” proclaimed a sign in the crowd. The announcer’s mention of Scalise got the crowd to its feet.
“By playing tonight we are showing the world that we will not be intimidated by threats, acts of violence or assaults on our democracy,” said President Donald Trump, appearing on the park’s giant screen but not attending the event. “The game will go on.”
Democrats prevailed, winning 11-2. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., his team’s manager, accepted the trophy, then handed it to his GOP counterpart, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, to put in Scalise’s office on behalf of the Democrats.
RHETORIC EASES A BIT
After a day when most congressional business was canceled, the House approved legislation Thursday offering health insurance tax credits to some veterans, and committees pondered subjects ranging from federal land management to cybersecurity.
The Capitol’s partisan combativeness, though not absent, was less pointed than usual, and warm words were exchanged among some lawmakers with starkly opposing political philosophies.
“There is so much you do that I disagree with,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, told his panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. “But you have long since earned my respect, and you deserve to be heard, and you are an honorable individual.”
Directing commends to Scalise, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said, “You are not alone. … We love you.” Lewis led a House floor Democratic sit-in last year when Republicans refused to consider gun control legislation.
Members of both parties said they needed to soften rhetorical attacks on one another, if only to set a better example for a public that seems increasingly divided into hostile political camps. It’s a sentiment lawmakers frequently express after mass shootings or terror attacks, only to see their sharp oratorical elbows gradually return. Underscoring Thursday’s somber mood, the Rev. Patrick Conroy, the House chaplain, opened the day’s proceedings by seeking divine forgiveness “when we seem to forget that words matter and can become seeds that will bring bitter harvest.”
Still, finger-pointing lingered as some on each side suggested that the other played a larger role in the disparaging broadsides they’ve increasingly aimed at one another.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in an interview that Democrats would be reminded of “positions they’ve taken in the past that are not consistent with their voice for bipartisanship today.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D- Calif., recounted candidate Trump’s comments prodding supporters to pummel demonstrators at rallies and said Republicans are being “sanctimonious.”
The House used a voice vote Thursday to approve a resolution lauding the Capitol Police for protecting lawmakers and stating that “violence has no place” in society. A reading of the measure received a standing ovation.
On Wednesday, House lawmakers had been scheduled to consider legislation to make it easier to buy gun suppressors, and dozens of family members of those killed in past gun violence had gathered in Washington to lobby against the Republican-backed bill.
The lobbying and a related hearing were canceled after Wednesday’s shooting. But gun control advocates said they are staying close.
“Anytime there’s a tragedy, it just once again amplifies the problem with gun violence in our country,” said Lucy McBath, whose son, Jordan Davis, was shot to death four years ago in a dispute over loud music. Gun control advocates insist that they’re not abandoning their efforts in Congress or state legislatures. But after Wednesday’s shooting, they did not immediately land on a new strategy to challenge Trump and the Republican-led Congress.
“It is frustrating. These kinds of tragedies happen every single day,” said McBath. “Americans should be able to play baseball and dance in a nightclub or attend religious services without the fear of being gunned down. Americans can do better, and we deserve better.”
The National Rifle Association made clear it was not backing off.
NRA spokesman Dana Loesch praised the Capitol Hill police, saying “good guys with guns kept this from getting worse.” She said the organization would continue pushing for gun-friendly legislation at the state and federal levels, arguing that new gun-control measures are not the answer.
“Evil is real, evil exists and it makes no sense that the good cannot protect themselves against evil,” said Loesch. “Those policies have failed where they have been implemented.”
In Arkansas, state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge linked Wednesday’s gunfire and the fatal shooting Monday of Newport Police Department Lt. Patrick Weatherford. She asked hundreds of city and town leaders across the state to “encourage civil discourse.”
Rutledge called the shootings of Weatherford and Scalise a “direct assault on our freedoms.” She told the Arkansas Municipal League that she would forgo her planned speech on gun laws that were passed during the legislative session. One of those laws allows concealed handguns to be carried on college campuses. “I’m not going to be talking about those,” Rutledge said.
Later she said, “I think now more than never is not a time for hate. Now is a time for love, to love our neighbors. … Now more than ever we must encourage civil discourse among our citizens, among our friends, among those we disagree with.”
SHOOTER’S LAST MONTHS
On Thursday morning, FBI agents swarmed Alexandria’s Del Ray neighborhood, where the shooting occurred. The baseball field, a parking lot and nearby YMCA building remained closed, as did some streets.
The van in which Hodgkinson had been living was parked in the YMCA lot. As part of its investigation, the FBI scoured the vehicle. Hodgkinson was a regular presence in recent weeks along Mount Vernon Avenue, the main commercial street in the Del Ray neighborhood. Stephen Brennwald, an Alexandria lawyer, said he realized after seeing Hodgkinson’s photo on the news that Hodgkinson was the man who had been hanging out for the past several weeks in the lobby of the YMCA adjacent to the baseball field.
Brennwald said Hodgkinson regularly showed up first thing in the morning — about the same time the shooting occurred — and would look at his laptop or stare out the window.
At her Illinois home, Sue Hodgkinson said repeatedly that she saw no signs that her husband was planning violence. She said he talked a lot about politics. James Hodgkinson had posted anti-Trump rhetoric on his Facebook page and had written letters to his hometown newspaper blaming Republicans for what he considered an agenda favoring the wealthy.
In his letters, he decried income inequality, encouraging the government to tax the rich and supported President Barack Obama, according to the Belleville News-Democrat. “A strong middle class is what a country needs to prosper,” he wrote in one of his letters to the editor. “The only thing that has trickled down in the last 30 years came from Mitt Romney’s dog.”