A US Republican senator is currently in a critical condition after a number of politicians were shot by a lone gunman who opened fire on a baseball practice game in a Washington DC suburb today.
It is reported that Steve Scalise, a Louisiana congressman and the House Majority Whip, is the critically injured person. He managed to drag himself into the outfield after receiving a bullet wound to the hip and was taken to a Washington hospital.
Five people including two police officers were taken to hospitals. The shooter died in the firefight.
Republican colleagues describe the suspect ambushing the politicians on the baseball field at Alexandria, Virginia, before 7am, before the gunman was shot and killed by local police officers.
The gunman is believed to be James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old American who has been described as a “Trump hater” based on his social media postings and the testimony of people who knew him. He had been photographed at protests, and was a strident supporter of Bernie Sanders‘ campaign in the Democratic primaries.
Sanders himself came out and strongly condemned both the attack and violence in general, after becoming aware that Hodgkinson may have volunteered for him:
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. pic.twitter.com/ib2reH3ghQ
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) June 14, 2017
Republican senator Rand Paul described what he saw during the shooting:
In the field I see Representative Scalise is shot but moving, and he’s trying to drag himself through the dirt out into the outfield.There are two staffers… they were laying down. Then I’m seeing the shots hitting the dirt around them. They were kind of making a difficult decision – do we we lay here and stay low and hope he doesn’t hit us… or does the shooter just advance and come closer and shoot you?
Trump himself issued a statement which focused on people getting over their political differences:
We may have our differences, but we do well at times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country.We could all agree that we are blessed to be Americans, that our children deserve to grow up in a nation of safety and peace, and that we are strongest when we are unified, and when we work together for the common good.
Source: BBC.
Photo: Supplied.
