Gunman accosted Florida politician; Democrats, GOP unite Stories,
Florida politician details encounter with gunman
U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis was just about to leave baseball practice with a fellow congressman Wednesday morning when a strange man walked up to his car.
“Is that Republicans or Democrats out there?” the man asked.
“It was a little bit bracing,” DeSantis said. His colleague, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-South Carolina, told him it was Republicans.
“And the guy turned around and walked to the field,” DeSantis said.
A few minutes later, the shooting began.
DeSantis, R-Palm Coast, was one of several GOP congressmen in Alexandria, Va., early Wednesday having batting practice and shagging a few grounders in preparation for today’s annual congressional baseball game.
“I hit, then I went to third base; Duncan went to shortstop, [Louisiana Rep. Steve] Scalise went to second,” DeSantis, 38, told the Orlando Sentinel. After a few minutes, “I told Duncan, ‘Look, I’m going. The game’s tomorrow; I don’t want to get hurt. Let’s beat the traffic.’ ”
They didn’t find out about the shooting until they got back to Washington.
Five people, including Scalise, who is the House Majority Whip, two staffers and two Capitol Police officers, had been shot on the baseball field.
DeSantis and Duncan realized they had to tell authorities about their encounter. It was off-putting, DeSantis said, but not enough to askwhy the questioner was so interested in the team’s political party. The two were interviewed by the FBI, which is heading the investigation.
There was some uncertainty at first about whether the man who approached them was the shooter, but once James T. Hodgkinson was named as the gunman, DeSantis and Duncan identified him through photographs.
DeSantis said he didn’t see a gun on the man when he spoke to them, but he only saw the man from the chest up
“It’s a sad commentary” that practice for the annual baseball game was shattered by gunfire, he said. More than $650,000 had already been raised for underprivileged youth in the Washington area through the annual event at Nationals Park, with more expected by game time.
Members look forward to the event all year, “especially Scalise,” DeSantis said. “He loves it out there. He’s like a kid in a candy store. … Every time you’d see him on the House floor, he’d [ask], ‘You playing?’ ”
Scalise had a Capitol Police detachment with him because he is part of the House leadership.
Had Scalise not been at practice, DeSantis said, “it would have been a bloodbath. All security was there because of him. … Everyone else out therewould have been target practice.”
Capitol Police do great work protecting members in the Capitol complex, he said, “but if you’re a run-ofthe-mill congressman, if you go off-campus to a dinner in Virginia or something, you typically don’t have any security at all.”
He said there has been an uptick in threats to members and their families since the election and President Donald Trump’s inauguration, adding that Congress needs to “re-evaluate some of the things we’re doing in terms of security.”
There is always the danger that increased security could further isolate officeholders from the public, he said. The Capitol “is the people’s house. … Any person has the right to come to my office, bang on the door and talk to me, and we want to keep it thatway.”
He was glad to see the political parties come together Wednesday, including a prayer by the Democratic baseball team specifically referenced by House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“We in Congress whip people up, and we’ve become more combative,” Ryan said. “But we have to keep politics in its proper zone. … At the end of the day, I really believe in a robust, very strong intellectual debate. You defend your position; I defend mine.”
As to the attack’s effect on the gun debate, “it’s not going to change people’s views on constitutional rights,” said DeSantis, who opposes restrictions on gun purchases.
Reports indicated the gunman was a member of several anti-Republican Facebook groups, including one called “Terminate the Republican Party.”
“To view someone from the other party as someone you want to kill becomes a very toxic ideology,” DeSantis said. “It’s not how we should view political differences.”
In a show of solidarity, the baseball game was still on for today in Washington.
“If they’re playing, I’ll play,” DeSantis said.