USA TODAY International Edition
Attack stuns Washington
In an instant, a sunny ball field becomes a battlefield
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 long gun but wondered why someone would be hunting near a baseball field.
Then the horror became clear: After being told the players on the suburban Virginia field were the Republican congressional baseball team practicing for an annual charity game, a gunman opened fire Wednesday around 7 a. m., firing dozens of rounds and injuring five people before being killed by police.
A ball field became a battlefield and summoned the military training of some of the players. One described 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 gunman’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.”
With shots coming from outside the fence near the third- base dugout, scrambling players dived for cover in the first- base dugout.
“There were ultimately about 12 of us in that dugout, and a few
“There was so much gunfire, you couldn’t get up and run. Pop, pop, pop, pop — it’s a sound I’ll never forget.” Michigan Rep. Mike Bishop
more would come every few minutes, including one of the staff members who had been shot when he was in center field,” Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona told CNN.
Rep. Joe Barton of Texas 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.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee said he was leaving practice and walking down the third- base 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 dived 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,” Williams said. “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 were a lot of heroes here.”
Rep. Mike Bishop of Michigan said he instinctively knew he had to get off the ground and began a “quick crab crawl” low to the ground — he told The
New York Times he “Army-crawled” — toward the firstbase dugout and the one open entrance to the field.
In the outfield, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said he watched one player scramble over a 10- foot fence. Paul said he hid behind a tree.
“I think with absolute certainty nobody would have survived without the Capitol Hill police,” Paul said. “It would have been a massacre without them.”
Flake and Brooks said that after someone yelled that the shooter was down, he and others — including a member of the security detail who had been injured himself — raced out to treat House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot in the hip.
Rep. Brad Wenstrup’s instincts as a former combat surgeon kicked in, and he directed others to keep pressure on the wound as he worked to cut way Scalise’s clothing. Wenstrup told CBS News, “I felt like I was back in Iraq.”