The man who allegedly shot several people at a baseball practice for Congressional Republicans was a Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) supporter and reportedly volunteered on Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Authorities say 66-year-old James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., opened fire Wednesday morning at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va. Five people were wounded, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). Hodgkinson was shot at the scene and later died in a hospital.
Sanders first issued a statement condemning the shooting, then addressed it in prepared remarks delivered on the U.S. Senate floor.
“I have just been informed that the alleged shooter at the Republican baseball practice is someone who apparently volunteered on my presidential campaign,” 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.”
The banner photo on what appears to be Hodgkinson’s Facebook page is an image of Sanders. The page is full of progressive and anti-Republican commentaries, many of them harsh or even vulgar. Hodgkinson was a frequent letter-writer to his local newspaper; the letters were sharply critical of Republican policies and politicians.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Hodgkinson volunteered for Sanders’ presidential campaign in Iowa. According to the Des Moines Register, Hodgkinson was not a paid staffer, and campaign operatives had no recollection of him.
The shooting broke out just after 7 a.m. Wednesday at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, a few miles outside of Washington, D.C. Scalise was shot in the hip and taken to a hospital for treatment. The wounded also included a Congressional staffer, a lobbyist and two U.S. Capitol police officers.
Here is video of Sanders’ full remarks:
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The web has this figured out already. The shooter was associated with the CIA and the whole thing was a psyop. Notice how the shooter conveniently died? (think lone gunman, Oswald) I hope the Congressman, alive during surgery, isn’t placed on the VIP list and then dies in hospital as so often happens. Hilary’s hit men out to make Bernie supporters to be violent, and in need of gun regulations. When are we going to see this evil witch imprisoned, awaiting execution for murders and treason?
Citizen, I am on Bernie’s side, and nothing he said during the campaign or since compares to what your president said and continues to say promoting violence. I was born and bred in America, and am as American as you. Your diatribe seems to ignore that you were one of the ones who never accepted Obama as your president. Your 180 degree about-face is not as subtle as you may think, or perhaps you think it’s okay to spout this bull about “accepting the loss in November.” Obama was more legitatimately elected both times than Trump, winning over 50% of the popular vote.
So get off your high horse and try to be civilized. We are all appalled and disgusted by this violence today. Bernie Sanders is the single most popular politician in this country today. You are the one out of step with the majority of Americans. If you don’t like it, why don’t you take your own advice?
March 4, 2010John Patrick Bedell opens fire on police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon. Bedell is armed with two semiautomatic firearms and many magazines. Bedell injures two officers before he is killed by return fire. Bedell believed the U.S. government had been taken over by a criminal organization.
March 21, 2010As the U.S. House of Representatives enters a final round of debate over the health care reform bill, Conservative blogger Solomon Solly Forrell calls for the assassination of President Barack Obama on his Twitter account. In two separate postings, Forrel writes, ASSASSINATION! America, we survived the #Assassinations of #Lincoln & #Kennedy. Well surely get over a bullet 2 #BarackObamas head!
March 23, 2010After Mike Troxel of the Lynchburg Tea Party and Nigel Coleman of the Danville Tea Party post the home address of the brother of Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) and urge supporters to drop by, someone deliberately cuts a propane gas line at Perriellos house. Rep. Perriello had been targeted by the Tea Party activists because of his vote in favor of health care reform. Perriellos brother and his wife have four children under the age of eight.
The list just keeps going and going. Don’t be a hypocrite. Violence and terrorism are vile regardless of which side the perp is on. Not a huge Bernie fan but everyone knows he doesn’t condone violence. The records show that most violence and domestic terrorism come from the right wing.
December 23, 2009Anti-Obama and pro-gun activist Warren Gator Taylor takes three people hostage at a federal post office in Wytheville, Virginia. He is armed with four guns, including a .40-caliber Glock pistol, despite a criminal record that includes convictions for lewd and lascivious behavior with a 13 year-old and attempted second-degree murder (Taylor shot his ex-wife three times in a parking lot in 1993). Taylor fires at least three rounds before the stand-off ends, including one at the stations fleeing postmaster.
January 12, 2010Law enforcement find 30 pipe bombs, 17 rifles and handguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition in the dwelling of Mark Campano of Cuyhaoga Falls, Ohio. Law enforcement are called to Campanos apartment in November 2009 after he accidentally detonates a pipe bomb and loses parts of two fingers.
January 12, 2010Charles Allan Dyer, a member of the Tea Party and far-right-wing organizations like Oath Keepers, is arrested at his home on charges of raping a 7 year old-girl. Sheriffs deputies find several firearms inside Dyers home and a Colt M-203 40mm grenade launcher, which was stolen from a military base in Fort Irwin, California, in 2006. Dyer told one interviewer, Im going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that youre so afraid of from the [Department of Homeland Security (DHS)] reports.
June 24, 2009Hal Turner, a New Jersey resident and white supremacist blogger/radio host, calls for the murder of three Republican-appointed jurists on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals who had issued a June 2 decision upholding handgun restrictions in Chicago. Turner says, Let me be the first to say this plainly: these judges deserve to be killed, and includes photographs, phone numbers, work addresses, and room numbers of the judges, as well as a map of Chicago s federal courthouse which points out its anti-truck bomb pylons.
July 13, 2009Gilbert Ortez, Jr. kills a police deputy in Chambers County, Texas, with an assault rifle. Police searching Ortez mobile home after a 10-hour standoff find more than 100 explosive devices; Nazi drawings and extremist literature; and several additional firearms.
October 18-19, 2009The Secret Service has received an unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama.
October 21, 2009John Brek, a 55 year-old Newark Airport security guard, is arrested for making terroristic threats against President Obama. Authorities find 43 firearms while searching his home, including a stolen rifle. Brek, a National Rifle Association member, is also found to be in possession of illegal hollow point bullets.
November 2009A billboard is erected on I-70 in Lafayette County, Missouri, that promotes a citizen’s guide to REVOLUTION. It urges Missourians to LIVE FREE OR DIE and PREPARE FOR WAR with a corrupt government. The billboard is highlighted at the Lafayette County Republicans website.
April 13, 2009Rep. Don Young (R-AK) signs a Letter of Declaration drafted by Schaeffer Cox, the head of the Second Amendment Task Force. Cox is later convicted for plotting to kill federal and state government officials.
April 25, 2009Joshua Cartwright, 28, a member of the Florida National Guard, shoots and kills two Okaloosa County sheriffs deputies attempting to arrest him on a domestic abuse charge. Cartwright is killed in an enusing gun battle with police. Cartwrights wife reports that he was severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected president. Okaloosa County Sheriff Edward Spooner states that Cartrwight was interested in militia groups and weapons training.
May 31, 2009Scott P. Roeder shoots and kills Dr. George Tiller in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas. The FBI lists Roeder as a member of the Montana Freemen, a radical anti-government group.
June 10, 2009James W. von Brunn, a convicted felon and Neo-Nazi, walks into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and shoots and kills a security guard. Von Brunn believed that Western civilization was going to be replaced with a ONE WORLD ILLUMINATI GOVERNMENT that would confiscate private weapons in order to accomplish its goals.
March 21-22, 2009Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants residents of her state to be armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back.
April 4, 2009Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski shoots and kills three police officers responding to a 911 call to his home in Pittsburgh. His friend Edward Perkovic tells reporters that Poplawski feared the Obama gun ban that s on its way and didn t like our rights being infringed upon.
April 7, 2009The Department of Homeland Security s Office of Intelligence and Analysis releases an assessment of right wing extremism in the United States. The Department notes that the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment. Recalling the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh, the Department speculates, The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.
July 27, 2008Jim Adkisson shoots and kills two people at a progressive church in Knoxville, Tennessee, wounding two. Adkisson calls it a symbolic killing because he really wanted to killevery Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldbergs book, but was unable to gain access to them.
December 9, 2008FBI teams investigating the murder of white supremacist James Cumming, 29, a resident of Belfast, Maine, find supplies for a crude radiological dispersal device and other explosives in his home. Cummings wife, who shot him to death after being abused by him repeatedly, explains, His intentions were to construct a dirty bomb and take it to Washington to kill President Obama. He was planning to hide it in the undercarriage of our motor home.
December 12, 2008Bruce Turnidge and his son, Joshua Turnidge, detonate a bomb at a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, killing two police officers. The Turnidges were vocal about their extreme, anti-government views and believed that the Obama administration was going to take away their right to keep and bear arms. Bruce Turnidge cited Timothy McVeigh as an inspiration for his crime.
You are completely off-base, citizen. Nothing in the speeches of Sanders or the Left was intended to be, or could reasonably be interpreted as a call to violence.
Unlike some of the campaign speeches of Trump who explicitly recommended personal violence, and who did nothing to address the occurrence of same at some of his rallies. Your insinuations that those of us on the left are not Americans is vile.
A person who does that is not driven by ideology but is a deranged person. It’s too bad he couldn’t have been treated for his mental illness.