The gunman who attacked a congressional baseball practice in Virginia on Wednesday, wounding five, has been identified as a passionate Bernie Sanders supporter and campaign volunteer who had long expressed his hatred for Republicans on social media. He was pronounced dead shortly after the attack.
James T. Hodgkinson, 66, of Belleville, Ill., had repeatedly likened the GOP to "a group of terrorists" in hyperbolic posts dating back to at least 2014, according to a Facebook profile under his name.
Over recent months, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans were central targets of Hodgkinson's ire. In a May 31 post he called Trump and his family "traitors" who "Need to Be Prosecuted to the Fullest Extent of the Law."
"Republicans Hate Women, Minorities, Working Class People, & Most All (99 percent) of the People of the Country," Hodgkinson wrote on May 26.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who captured left-wing support during his campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said in a statement that Hodgkinson had apparently volunteered for his campaign. Sanders denounced the violence and offered his sympathies for the victims.
"I am sickened by this despicable act," Sanders said. "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."
Hodgkinson was a home inspector in downstate Illinois and a Democratic supporter who had written multiple letters to the editor of the Belleville News-Democrat in 2012, often opposing Republicans or supporting marijuana legalization.
A neighbor in Belleville, Aaron Meurer, 33, said Hodgkinson lived in a well-kept home in a rural area on the south side of town and had kept a Sanders sign in his yard during the 2016 election.
Meurer said that he hadn't seen Hodgkinson in recent months. Hodgkinson had recently obtained a used white van, and Meurer said he assumed Hodgkinson had retired and left on a trip.
Before leaving home, Meurer said Hodgkinson often worked in the yard or on the house and would sometimes wave and say "hi." Meurer said Hodgkinson would sometimes talk about politics but showed no signs of violent behavior and instability.
"He had mentioned stuff about Republicans and high taxes and not taxing the rich enough, stuff like that," Meurer said. "Nothing too extreme or too violent."
A former construction industry acquaintance, Bill Stanis of St. Louis, called Hodgkinson "a little off."
"He was just always very opinionated in what he thought should be right," Stanis said. "He was always quick to tell you what he thought it was and what he thought it should be."
Stanis had worked with Hodgkinson on construction projects 20 or 30 years ago, but Stanis lost touch after he moved from Belleville from St. Louis. He said Hodgkinson and his wife had adopted a daughter from an Asian country.
But the pair reconnected in 2013 when Stanis hired Hodgkinson _ who Stanis said went by the nickname "Tom" _ to inspect his new home.
"I had known Tom in the past, was actually friends with him, but had lost touch with him for many years," Stanis said. "He was just as crazy then as I thought he was 20 years ago."
But when it took Stanis more than two weeks to send Hodgkinson a check for the work, Hodgkinson immediately sued him, which stunned Stanis.
"Dude, I hadn't seen you for 20 years, and you sue me? ... I can't believe you did that to me," Stanis remembered thinking. Stanis said he paid Hodgkinson at court and the case was dismissed, and Stanis told Hodgkinson he didn't want to see him for another 20 years.
Still, nothing prepared him for Wednesday's events. "I would never had thought he would do something like this," Stanis said. "It flabbergasts me."
On Facebook, Hodgkinson was a member of several liberal-leaning groups. Among them: "The Road to Hell is Paved with Republicans," "Donald Trump is Not My President," "Terminate the Republican Party," and "President Bernie Sanders."
Howard Pearlman is the founder of the national group "Terminate the Republican Party."
Pearlman said Wednesday he did not personally know Hodgkinson.
"But I've seen him post some," Pearlman, who called his group left-leaning, said from his Cherry Hill, N.J., home. "Everyone posts _ we're really political."
"It's terrible what he did," Pearlman said of the gunman. "I _ and we as a group _ do not condone this at all."
