Congressional baseball shooting
On June 14, 2017, a mass shooting occurred during a practice session for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Alexandria, Virginia. 66-year-old James Hodgkinson shot six people, including U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, U.S. Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, congressional aide Zack Barth, and lobbyist Matt Mika. A ten-minute shootout took place between Hodgkinson and officers from the Capitol and Alexandria Police before officers shot Hodgkinson, who died from his wounds later that day at the George Washington University Hospital. Scalise and Mika were taken to nearby hospitals where they underwent surgery.
| Congressional baseball shooting | |
|---|---|
Eugene Simpson Stadium Park Eugene Simpson Stadium Park Eugene Simpson Stadium Park Eugene Simpson Stadium Park | |
| Location | Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 38°49′18″N 77°3′12″W |
| Date | June 14, 2017 7:09 – 7:20 a.m. (EDT) |
| Target | Republican Party congressmen |
Attack type | Assassination attempt, domestic terrorism, mass shooting |
| Weapons |
|
| Deaths | 1 (the perpetrator) |
| Injured | 6 (4 by gunfire); 2 of them critically |
| Perpetrator | James Hodgkinson |
| Motive | Far-Left extremism, opposition to the election of Donald Trump |
Hodgkinson was a left-wing activist with a record of domestic violence from Belleville, Illinois, while Scalise was a Republican Party member of Congress. The Virginia Attorney General concluded Hodgkinson's attack was "an act of terrorism ... fueled by rage against Republican legislators." Scalise was the first sitting member of Congress to have been shot since Arizona Representative Democratic Gabby Giffords in the 2011 Tucson shooting. In a 2021 report, the FBI classified the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism, and the perpetrator of the shooting as a "domestic violent extremist" with a "personalized violent ideology".