For James T. Hodgkinson, the 66 year old male Alexandria shooter, this was not his first brush with the law.
Hodgkinson had previously been arrested for domestic battery. Hodgkinson’s name became front page news after shooting House Majority Whip, Steve Scalise (R-La.) while he was practicing with the Republican congressional team. Before this event he had also had various encounters with law enforcement agents.
His social media accounts show he was an avid supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and appeared to be extremely angry with President Donald Trump. Sanders has since made a statement condemning violence.
In 2006, Hodgkinson was arrested for domestic battery. While all charges were dismissed, the incident report stated it involved his foster daughter and her friends and it stated that he had allegedly been violent.
A decade before this, another tragedy struck his family. A different foster daughter of his poured gas over herself at the age of 17. She set herself alight, successfully committing suicide.
Giving a character description, Douglas Knepper, a relative of the shooter, admitted to the Guardian:
“To be truthful, he was very strange.”
A Sheriff’s report from March this year shows that someone living near Hodgkinson complained that he was:
“…In the pine trees, shooting.”
While another police report indicated that someone had called the police to say someone had fired 50 shots. The same report says that Hodgkinson was told to stop shooting his gun in the area, but also acknowledged he had the correct identification to be bearing firearms.
There are other reports from people who knew him, his neighbor Aaron Meurer said:
“He had strong political views, but nothing that seemed crazy. He was a liberal Democrat and I am kind of the opposite, but we never had a serious political dispute. I tended to avoid talking about it.”
His business had recently closed down, and according to a neighbor, his wife Suzanne was removed from his property under escort that morning. It appears that this ‘political’ shooting, which has left Scalise in a critical condition in hospital, may have been caused by a personal problems, as well as ideological reasons.
He was killed by law enforcement in response to the shooting. The incident has sparked debate over gun control and there is an enormous amount of blame being thrown from all sides on social media.
Watch Hodgkinson years ago at an Occupy Wall Street protest after the jump:
Watch Bernie Sander condemn violence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY1kESmKtAs
Featured image via YouTube.
