The FBI confirmed police shot and killed James T. Hodgkinson on Wednesday after he opened fire on a baseball practice for congressional Republicans preparing for their annual game against congressional Democrats.
Hodgkinson, 66, was from Belleville, Ill., and police believe he fired tens of rounds at Republican members of the House and Senate while they held practice for an annual congressional baseball game in Alexandria, Virginia. The FBI confirmed his identity Wednesday afternoon.
“The FBI is actively investigating Hodgkinson to include his associates, whereabouts, social media impressions and potential motivations,” the statement from the FBI read. “This is an active investigation that continues to unfold.”
Six people were brought to the hospital, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., who was shot in the hip. Another congressman was injured during the incident, but was not shot.
President Trump said Wednesday morning Hodgkinson died from “his injuries.”
Hodgkinson has been in Alexandria since March living out of his vehicle on a street near Simpson Park, said Tim Slater, the FBI special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C. field office.
Slater said he traveled to the area from Belleville. He offered no comment when asked what Hodgkinson’s motive might have been.
Hodgkinson has had a number of run-ins with police, the most numerous stemming from his anger that people used his driveway to turn around on his street or individuals driving on his lawn.
Some were more serious and criminal in nature.
In 2006, he was charged with battery after he grabbed his daughter by the hair and “pulled her to the floor” after trying to get her to come home from a neighbor’s house, according to a police report.
The report from police shows Hodgkinson used “bodily force” to enter his neighbor’s house. The forced entry caused about $300 in damages.
The daughter and a friend tried to leave in a car, but Hodgkinson punched her in the face after using a pocketknife to cut the seatbelt.
Later that year, Hodgkinson got into an argument with a neighbor because he “accidentally struk her dog while it was sleeping in the roadway.”
Earlier this year, Hodgkinson’s neighbors called the St. Clair County Sheriff when they heard shots fired in the trees near his home, according to a police report. The caller said about 50 shots were fired in the woods.
Hodgkinson had a Firearm Owners ID and was told not to shoot his gun there anymore.
According to St. Clair County court records, Hodgkinson was charged with a variety of offenses over the years, including failure to obtain an electrical contractor license, resisting a peace officer, fleeing police, damaging a motor vehicle and driving under the influence.
The shooter posted several political statements on a Facebook page that appeared to belong to him and was a member of anti-Republica n groups, including “Terminate the Republican Party,” “The Road to Hell is Paved with Republicans” and “Illinois Berners United to Resist Trump.”
His Facebook also features messages supportive of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in last year’s election.
Sanders said Hodgkinson “apparently volunteered” on his presidential campaign, but said he is “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,” Sanders said in a statement. “Real change can only come about through nonviolent action, and anything else runs against our most deeply held American values.”
A TV report from 2011 shows Hodgkinson adopting some of the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street at a rally in St. Louis.
“The 99 percent are getting pushed around and the 1 percent are just not giving a damn so we gotta speak up for the whole country,” he said.
Hodgkinson’s brother, Michael, told the New York Times he knew Hodgkinson was unhappy with the results of the election after Trump won.
“I know he wasn’t happy with the way things were going, the election results and stuff,” he said. “Totally out of the blue.”
Michael Hodgkinson said he wasn’t close with his brother and wasn’t sure why he decided to stay in Washington, since Hodgkinson is from Illinois.
There, he was a licensed home inspector, according to records from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. He was licensed as a real estate appraiser in 1994, and as a home inspector since 2003.
His license as an appraiser expired in 1997, and his license as a home inspector lapsed in November.
The 66-year-old wrote several letters in 2012 to the Belleville News-Democrat, in which he railed against income inequality, called for changes to the tax code and criticized Republicans.
“I have never said ‘life sucks,’ only the policies of the Republicans,” Hodgkinson wrote in an August 2012 letter.
“A strong middle class is what a country needs to prosper. The only thing that has trickled down in the last 30 years came from Mitt Romney’s dog,” he wrote in a July 2012 letter. “Let’s vote all Republicans out of Congress, and get this country back on track.”
Hodgkinson is also seen in a 2012 photo from the newspaper holding a sign reading “Tax the Rich Like Congress Did for 70 years Till Reagan’s ‘Trickle Down.’ We Need ‘20 brackets—$20 million.'”
Neighbors of the Illinois man said Hodgkinson had been gone for the last two months, and the shooter’s wife, Suzanne, told one neighbor he went on a trip.
Aaron Meurer told the Belleville News-Democrat that Hodgkinson was a “pretty hardcore” Democrat who “wasn’t happy” when Trump was elected in November.
“But, he seemed like a nice enough guy,” Meurer said.
Meurer, who said Hodgkinson and his wife lived across the street for six years, also said the man raised foster kids and remembers grandchildren visiting occasionally.
The Washington Post reported former Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille spoke with Hodgkinson every day for the last month and a half. Euille said it appears Hodgkinson was living out of his gym bag.
“He was a very friendly person,” Euille said. “But what I did notice about this gentleman is he’d open up his gym bag and in it, he had everything he owned. He was living out of the gym bag. That, and he sat in the (YMCA’s) lobby for hours and hours. Outside of myself, I don’t think he knew anyone else in town.”
Todd Shepherd contributed to this report
