In Belleville, alleged gunman remembered 'as a very irascible, angry little man'
For years, James T. Hodgkinson lived what seemed to be an unremarkable life in this quiet community outside St. Louis, sharing a house with his longtime wife, Sue, and running a home inspection and appraisal business.
But at times, residents say, he showed flashes of anger and violence. In 2006, he was charged with a domestic assault involving a gun and, more recently, a neighbor complained to police that he was shooting his rifle at trees on his property.
All the while, he sought a platform to express increasingly strident left-leaning views, in dozens of letters to the editor of a local newspaper, at an Occupy Wall Street protest, on social media, and in messages to his congressman.
On Wednesday, the combustible mix of weapons and rage allegedly boiled over when, U.S. Capitol Police said, he opened fire on Republican congressmen practicing baseball in Virginia.
Five people — including Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip from Louisiana, who was shot in the hip — were wounded in the shooting and taken to hospitals for treatment, authorities said.
Hodgkinson, who was 66, died from gunshot wounds sustained in a shootout with police, the Capitol Police said. Scalise was listed in critical condition.
"He was a bit of a misanthrope," said Lyndon Evanko, a retired attorney who said he represented Hodgkinson. "He came across as a very irascible, angry little man, but not somebody I would expect to do something like this."
One man reached by the Tribune on Wednesday who is related to Hodgkinson by marriage said he had met him a few times, and was struck by Hodgkinson's odd personality. Hodgkinson was often "in his own world," the man said.
"When I heard this morning was I shocked? No. Was I saying 'Oh, this must be someone else?' No," he said.
Living in a van
The FBI, in a briefing with reporters, said that Hodgkinson had moved to Alexandria, Va., in March. He was living in a white van on a street near a YMCA and the field where the shooting took place, said Tim Slater, the special agent in charge of the FBI's field office in Washington.
He did not appear to be working, Slater said. State records show he had dissolved his home inspection and appraisal business, JTH Services Inc., in January.
Asked whether Hodgkinson could have targeted the baseball practice some time ago, Slater declined to speculate on his motive or whether the shooting was part of a vendetta against Republicans.
"We have no indication that he knew this was going on," Slater said of the baseball practice.
A former mayor of Alexandria, Bill Euille, said in a telephone interview that he had talked with Hodgkinson at the local YMCA several times in recent weeks, recognizing that the man appeared to be new in town, trying to find his way.
"Most of our conversation was really friendly. 'Where is a good place for breakfast? Where is a good place for lunch?'" Euille said. "Then it was, 'Hey I'm looking for a job, do you know anyone who's hiring?'"
Hodgkinson often seemed to be camped out with his laptop, with essentially nowhere to go, Euille said.
"He never talked politics or anything with me," he said. "He'd just be sitting there or be in the sauna." Gradually Hodgkinson started to get comfortable, Euille said, and about a week ago, started bringing cookies and doughnuts to guests and staff there.
"I think it was his way of trying to connect with people," Euille said.
On Monday, the YMCA staff told Euille that Hodgkinson had canceled his membership, he said. But the man was there Tuesday and Wednesday, Euille said. The former mayor heard about the shooting before he went to the YMCA, learning that it was on lockdown.
It was not known where Hodgkinson acquired the weapon allegedly used in the shooting.
In Belleville, Hodgkinson had purchased at least three guns, all from a local gun dealer, and had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, a source said. Among those three guns was an SKS assault rifle, the source said.
In March, a neighbor called the police to complain that Hodgkinson was firing shots on his property.
It was the most serious of about the half-dozen times that sheriff's deputies had been called to Hodgkinson's house over the past two decades, St. Clair County Sheriff Richard Watson told reporters outside Hodgkinson's house on Wednesday.
William Schaumleffel, who lives across a farm field from the house, made the call to police and said Hodgkinson was firing a rifle into trees and refusing to stop.
"He was target practicing out in the white pines behind his house," Schaumleffel said. "It was a high-powered jobby. It was loud."
Schaumleffel was in his own yard with his two grandchildren, ages 6 and 3, and was concerned about his neighbor firing a rifle across flat, open land.
"I yelled, 'Hey, stop shooting,'" he said. Schaumleffel said he then saw Hodgkinson when he stepped out from behind a shed, but the man did not stop shooting. That's when Schaumleffel called the sheriff's office.
Schaumleffel said he had lived near Hodgkinson for more than a decade but had never had contact with him. He also said that, before that incident, he had never heard or seen any gunfire around Hodgkinson's home.
The sheriff's office released response records from the incident. Officers told Hodgkinson to stop shooting but made no arrest.
The report noted that Hodgkinson had a proper gun permit. "Subject was advised to not discharge his weapon in the area," the report said. "Subject in the pine trees shooting and there are homes in the area."
It was not known if it was the same rifle used in Wednesday's shooting, though Watson said he doubted it. "It was an assault rifle they're describing (in Virginia) and the one from March was a deer rifle, for hunting, which is very different," he said.
That March run-in was not Hodgkinson's first gun-related incident.
In April 2006, he was arrested on "suspicion of battery, domestic battery, criminal damage of property and reckless discharge of a firearm" by the sheriff's office, according to a brief report at the time in the Belleville News-Democrat.
In April 2006, police records show Hodgkinson went to a neighbor’s house looking for his daughter and “used bodily force to damage” a wooden door upstairs. Witnesses said Hodgkinson forced his way into the home looking for his teenage daughter and grabbed her by the hair when he found her upstairs, according to a police narrative on file with St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department.
His daughter escaped and got into the neighbor’s car, but Hodgkinson opened the door of the car, pulled out a pocket knife and cut off the seat belt she was wearing, records show. Hodgkinson’s wife joined him, struggling to pull out their daughter, as Hodgkinson punched the neighbor who was in the driver’s seat of the car in the face, witnesses told police.
Later, Joel Fernandez, the boyfriend of the woman who was punched, went to Hodgkinson’s home to confront him. He said Hodgkinson “walked outside with a shotgun and aimed it at Fernandez face,” a complaint states. Hodgkinson struck Fernandez on the side of his face with the wooden stock of the shotgun and fired off one round as Fernandez ran away.
Police arrested Hodgkinson and his wife and charged them with domestic battery and aggravated discharge of a firearm, according to a narrative obtained by The Washington Post. Police also recovered a 12-gauge shotgun. The county clerk’s online database shows the charges were later dismissed.
