‘Thank God he wasn’t a good shot’
UNITED STATES: For weeks, James Hodgkinson sat in the lobby of the YMCA in Alexandria, Virginia, focused on his laptop and carrying a gym bag, but never working out. His perch looked on to the field where the Republican baseball team had been practising daily for about two months.
Yesterday, Hodgkinson was there again at 7am. By 7.09, he had left the building and was firing dozens of rounds at the congressional team, wounding five people before being shot dead by police.
Law enforcement officials are piecing together why Hodgkinson left Belleville, Illinois for Virginia, and said it was not clear whether the 66-year-old knew the GOP team was scheduled to practise that day. But in social media postings, Hodgkinson was highly critical of President Donald Trump and other Republican leaders.
Congressman Steve Scalise, the No 3 Republican in the US House of Representatives, is in a critical condition in hospital. He underwent surgery after being shot in the left hip, suffering broken bones, injuries to internal organs and severe bleeding.
Congressmen at the ballpark described hearing loud noises like the sound of firecrackers, and 15 to 20 people lying on the ground and realising they had only baseball bats to defend themselves against bullets.
‘‘When he started shooting, he was shooting to kill people. And thank God he wasn’t a very good shot,’’ said Representative Joe Barton, the Republican team’s manager.
Also wounded were a congressional aide and one former aide who now worked as a lobbyist, officials said. A police officer suffered a gunshot wound, and another officer twisted an ankle.
Trump and wife Melania made an unannounced visit to Scalise and the wounded police officer in hospital yesterday, and Trump posted a tweet calling for prayers for the congressman.
The FBI said Hodgkinson had arrived in Alexandria by March and was living out of a white cargo van. As late as March 24, he was still in Belleville, where neighbours reported him to the police for firing 50 rounds from a hunting rifle into a stand of trees.
But by early April, Hodgkinson was seen drinking beer and watching golf at a barbecue joint in the Del Ray neighbourhood, and sitting most nights on a bench near a Walgreens, smoking or reading. At the Y, he had become a fixture who drew notice but not suspicion, appearing friendly to some and a ‘‘sourpuss’’ to others.
Hodgkinson left a trail of political rants against Republicans and the ‘‘super rich’’, and he had adopted a photo of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as his Facebook cover image.
In the suburbs of St Louis, where Hodgkinson had worked as a home inspector, he was described as politically angry and personally reserved. Over the past decade, he had periodic outbursts involving neighbours, and a daughter, that caused people to call the police.
Hodgkinson was quick to share his political views online and in letters to his local newspaper. A Facebook page believed to be his, features pictures of Sanders and anti-Trump rhetoric, including a recent post that reads: ‘‘Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.’’
The Republican lawmaker who represented Hodgkinson’s home town said he was ‘‘always angry’’ about the GOP agenda but ‘‘never crossed the line’’ in more than a dozen emails or phone calls to his office.
Dale Walsh, a friend of Hodgkinson’s, said yesterday that Hodgkinson was passionate about his beliefs but always appeared to be ‘‘in control’’.
Hodgkinson was ‘‘pretty well fed up’’ with the political situation in the US, Walsh said, but the shooting was a shock.
Charles Orear, a restaurant manager from St Louis, became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders’ 2016 campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice towards others.
On the floor of the US Senate yesterday, Sanders said: ‘‘I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be – violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society, and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.’’
Hodgkinson was described as ‘‘an angry little man’’ with ‘‘a chip on his shoulder’’ by a lawyer who represented him in the past.
‘‘He was right and you were wrong,’’ said Lyndon Evanko, a retired Belleville attorney. ‘‘To him there was no grey area.’’
Still, Evanko said, the shootings came as a shock: ‘‘Nothing about him would lead me to believe he would do something like this.’’
One woman who long lived near Hodgkinson described him as ‘‘one of the worst humans ever’’, saying she had had multiple confrontations with him.
‘‘We are all not surprised by what he did,’’ Nicki Friedeck said. ‘‘He’s a rotten human being.’’
– Washington Post, TNS