It definitely wasn’t what we were planning to write about this week, but the news out of Alexandria, VA – that a group of Republican members of congress practicing at a local baseball field for a charity ballgame between them and their Democratic counterparts came under heavy gunfire, injuring seven including House Majority whip Steve Scalise and Capitol Police Officers Crystal Griner and David Bailey – demanded to be addressed. Scalise suffered the most severe wounds, requiring extensive emergency surgery and said to be in critical condition as of the next day. That more were not injured and no one killed in the sudden and overwhelming attack is being attributed to the heroic actions of Griner and Bailey who confronted and killed the attacker.
I wish I could say we were surprised. That an attack on congressmen simply practicing baseball before an annual charity game, where “red” and “blue” lawmakers set aside their usual combative political rhetoric, was more shocking than it was. Beyond the initial stunned double-take at the news, however, that this is where we’ve come just seemed all too obvious, considering the state of political discourse we now expect and accept.
At first glance, James T Hodgkinson doesn’t really profile as someone who’d attempt to carry out a mass political assassination. One doesn’t usually equate “66 year old, left-progressive, Bernie Sanders die-hard, “Letter-to-the-Editor” writing, social media warrior from Belleville, IL” as the guy who would take up arms and carry out an attack on political opponents, no matter how opposed to their agenda he may be; while there are plenty of politically active people who might fit that (or a somewhat similar) description, even the most firebrand among them typically aren’t the violent type. Our collective (and growing) experience of those who choose violence tells us to look toward someone much younger, more radically polarized to either political extreme, and far less open and mainstream in his choice of oppositional political expression. At first glance, James T Hodgkinson is a rather normally engaged, if disaffected, Everyman in hyper-politicized 2017 America.
Looking deeper starts to reveal a significantly darker and more troubled individual for whom normal expectations obviously don’t apply. The information available to us as I write this, a little more than 24 hours after the shooting had stopped, will surely be enhanced with far greater details and insight in the coming days as search warrants are served, relatives and associates interviewed, Hodgkinson’s life turned over, and the media digs into and analyzes each new revelation, but for now a revealing picture is emerging of who James T Hodgkinson was.
Early reports detail his political passion – “obsession” or “delusions” some might argue – but paint a picture not unlike countless other politically engaged folks on the left and the right. It is into his more personal past that red flags emerge. From CNN:
A police report in Illinois also details an incident in 2006 with Hodgkinson's daughter and her friends -- one that involved a gun. When Hodgkinson's daughter was at a female friend's home, he and his wife allegedly tried to take her away from there.
The report says Hodgkinson resorted to dragging his daughter out of her friend's car, slashing her seatbelt, and punching his daughter's friend in the face.
The young woman's boyfriend later confronted Hodgkinson, and Hodgkinson pulled out his shotgun, hit the younger man in the face with the wooden stock of the gun, then fired a single shot that missed, according to police. Hodgkinson was charged with two counts of battery, aggravated discharge of a firearm, criminal damage to a motor vehicle and two counts of domestic battery. None of the three victims showed up in court, so the case was dismissed later that year.
Another, more recent incident, occurred three months ago. Deputies with the St. Clair Sheriff's Office were called when locals heard "shots fired" in a residential neighborhood, according to police records. Deputies found Hodgkinson shooting a hunting rifle. But because he had properly registered himself as a firearms owner with the state of Illinois, deputies merely advised him to shoot safely.
Reports in USA Today offer more insight into a troubled and volatile history, including additional details from the incident involving his daughter and her boyfriend:
Hodgkinson carried a long record of arrests on various misdemeanor criminal charges dating back to 1988, according to St. Clair County, Ill., Circuit Court records, with the infractions ranging from minor driving offenses and repeated failures to obtain work permits to battery and driving under the influence.
In April 2006… Hodgkinson allegedly battered his daughter, pulling her hair and hitting her. He then punched a female friend of his daughter in the face "with a closed fist"… according to police and court records.
Court records show during the incident he also allegedly cut the front passenger seatbelt of the female friend’s car in his apparent effort to drag his daughter out of the car. The charges were all later dismissed.
His family also endured tragedy. In 1996, another foster child living with him and his wife, Suzanne, killed herself at the age of 17, according to the Belleville News-Democrat. The daughter, Wanda Ashley Stock, doused herself with gasoline and set herself on fire inside a car, the News-Democrat reported.
But it was shortly after the incident earlier this year, where he had been spoken to and advised to shoot indoors by the St Clair County deputy, that Hodgkinson’s actions veered into even stranger behavior and brought him onto a collision course in Alexandria:
In recent months, Hodgkinson had been living out of a white cargo van in Alexandria on a block that borders the baseball field, according to the FBI. Former Alexandria Mayor Bill Euille told CNN he had regular encounters with Hodgkinson at a YMCA near the field where Euille exercises…
…Stephen Brennwald, a 57-year old trial attorney who also works out at the YMCA, said he regularly saw Hodgkinson there in recent weeks, always on his laptop. "He didn't fit into our gym at all. I never once saw him work out, never once saw him in workout clothes," Brennwald said.
Hodgkinson also hung out on a bench in the park by the baseball field, nearby residents said.
Alison Manson would steer her one-year-old daughter away from him.
"I just thought he looked homeless," she said. "He had a lot of bags with him."
Alison's husband, George, said he sometimes tried to say hello to Hodgkinson. He would not respond.
"He didn't seem scary," George Manson said, "he just seemed out of it."
- from CNN, 6/15/2017
The picture this paints of Hodgkinson as emotionally an unstable, easily angered, and violently reactionary man should be taken at face value. From what he chose to periodically show the world – and we all conceal far more than we put on display – his volatility was an ingrained feature and most likely a symptom of an underlying mental illness, whether diagnosed or not, and should give us pause. That he chose to voluntarily uproot himself from southern Illinois and spend the last several weeks living out of a van in Alexandria lends further credence to a psychological slip.
It is tempting and easy for a lot of people, particularly those with strong partisan leanings that lead them to demonize their political opponents, to blame his aggressively leftist leanings. But most of what he posted to social media was really rather mainstream in the rhetorical wars of 2017, his more extreme statements of the need to “destroy” the Republican Party were indirect and felt more like symbolic hyperbole than real threats, and, again, 66 year old habitual author of letters-to-the-local-editor tend not to suddenly embrace mass assassination as Plan B. It is tempting and easy for others to more generally blame the poisonous rhetoric coming from one side or both, and even some politicians and pundits are on board with this, calling on their colleagues to cool the ongoing war of words that has been boiling over. This is probably not a bad idea, but history’s prognosis for lasting change is poor.
Those of us in law enforcement need to take particular heed, learn from this incident, and realize we are policing in extremely angry and polarized times; comparisons to the sociopolitical upheaval of the late 1960s are apt. As you go forth to protect your communities, remember:
- While most people suffering from mental illness are statistically more likely to be victims of crime than perpetrators and only a small number of them are ever dangerous, even a very small percentage prone to acting out violently can wreak a lot of havoc;
- People who experience intense feelings of persecution and hopelessness, especially when they perceive an existential crisis either personally, to their way-of-life, or culturally/societally are at greater risk of lashing out, and will believe their use of violence to be both necessary and morally justified;
- One man’s act of senseless murder is another’s righteous rebellion. I am quite sure James T Hodgkinson didn’t cast himself as a villain in his mind’s script, but as striking a blow against tyranny;
- Right now, while most of us look on in horror, shock, or disgust others will elevate Hodgkinson to hero status, and some will even seek to emulate him. I doubt this is the last such act will see;
- It will be line officers who respond when the next act of violence explodes.
Be safe, stay alert, and mentally prepare. Our society is angry and hurt, and some on the left and the right are motivated to keep things stirred up.
