Gunman who shot top GOP congressman had history of arrests

The shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise and four others at a baseball practice for Republican members of Congress on Wednesday morning in Alexandria, Virginia, was always going to quickly turn to politics.

President Trump, in a statement from the White House Wednesday, said that Hodgkinson died at a local hospital from wounds suffered when officers returned fire on the Belleville, Ill., man who owned a home-inspection business.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a floor speech Wednesday afternoon that he learned that Hodgkinson had volunteered for his progressive campaign for president, which focused on economic equality and almost toppled Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations and threatened to derail the Democratic Convention last summer.

“He said, ‘I understand, ‘ and said he needed to take the gun to a range to shoot it, Watson said”. And let me be as clear as I can be.

Sanders says violence is unacceptable, and says only “nonviolent action” can bring change. Pork Barrel bartender Jamie Craig told ABC News that he “came off a little creepy” and was “extremely quiet, didn’t really make eye contact”.

“Our prayers go out for a full recovery of Rep. Scalise, the congressional aides and police officers who were injured”.

Trump responded to the incident, calling for calm: “We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country”.

Euille, a general contractor, even tried to help Hodgkinson get a job, The Post reports. The charges were dismissed, the records show. At the time police recovered a pocket knife, hair they say was pulled out of his girlfriend’s head and a 12-gauge shotgun at the scene.

Sanders, 75, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton.

Hodgkinson had been licensed as a home inspector and real estate appraiser, but did not renew his home inspector license after it expired past year, state records showed.

Hodgkinson, a Belleville, Illinois resident, was killed when police returned fire this morning.

But, according to CBS, he did volunteer for the Sanders presidential campaign.

“Every issue that we were working on, he was not in support of”, Bost said, saying the communications were of a left-wing slant but delivered “never with any threats, only anger”.

According to Heavy.com, Hodgkinson has a second Facebook page where he wrote more anti-President Trump rhetoric.

Hodgkinson was still in IL as recently as March, when the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department responded to a “shots fired” call and found Hodgkinson shooting a hunting rifle. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy.

Court records reviewed and obtained by NBC News show that Hodgkinson was charged in 2006 with assaulting his girlfriend. He is in critical condition. One of the final letters from Hodgkinson, in July of 2012, called for President Obama’s re-election and to “vote all Republicans out of Congress”.