FBI fi lls in some gaps on ballfield shooter

NATIONAL CRIME /

WASHINGTON — Adrift and nearly out of money after three months of living out of his van, the gunman who shot a House Republican and four other people on a Virginia baseball field didn’t have any concrete plans to inflict violence on the Republicans he loathed, FBI officials said Wednesday.

James Hodgkinson, 66, was shot and killed by police after he opened fire last week on congressional Republicans practicing in Alexandria for a charity baseball game. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House majority whip, was gravely wounded. Scalise remains hospitalized, but his condition was upgraded to fair Wednesday. All five people who were shot, including two U.S. Capitol police officers, survived.

At a news conference Wednesday, FBI officials said Hodgkinson acted alone and had no connections to terror groups. But they said they had not yet clarified who, if anyone, he planned to shoot, or why, beyond his animus toward President Donald Trump and the Republicans he felt were ruining the country.

It wasn’t even clear whether he had prior plans to attack the baseball practice or whether he just happened upon it the morning of June 14, said Tim Slater, who leads the criminal division of the FBI’s Washington field office.

Hodgkinson had a piece of paper with the names of six members of Congress written on it, Slater said, but the note lacked context, and there was no evidence indicating he planned to target those officials. Slater declined to name the members or say whether they were Republicans or Democrats.

In November, shortly after Trump was elected, the unemployed home inspector from Belleville, Illinois, purchased the two guns used in the shooting, a rifle and a 9mm handgun. In March, Hodgkinson left Illinois and drove to Alexandria, where he lived in his van in a YMCA parking lot. He rented out a storage unit where he kept more than 200 rounds of ammunition, among other belongings.