The office of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who was present at the Republican congressional baseball practice Wednesday morning when a gunman opened fire on the practice, released a statement detailing the incident.
Read the statement below, via Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur.
Senator @JeffFlake, who was present during the shooting, estimates that more than 50 shots were fired. A statement from his office: pic.twitter.com/fMSRlIco97
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 14, 2017
Earlier on Wednesday, Flake spoke on-camera to members of the media. His interview, from Alexandria, was broadcast on MSNBC:
“We were doing batting practice and all of the sudden we heard shots and it was clear pretty quickly that there was a shooter there with a high-powered rifle,” Flake said. “And we — many of us dove in the dugout. Steve Scalise, one of the members, the majority whip in the House, was hit in the hip and dragged himself off of the infield into the field and he was down the whole time.”
“Most of us — about 12 of us got into the dugout and then there was return fire from behind our dugout from the Capitol Police, who were here as part of Steve Scalise, the whip’s, detail,” Flake continued. “It went on for about 10 minutes. A lot — dozens and dozens and dozens — of shots fired. Just going overhead. I got a look at the shooter — he came over behind the backstop — but he had a clear sight into the dugout so we couldn’t stay up for long. And when we heard an-all clear, that the shooter was down, then I ran out to Steve to put pressure on the wound there.”
Flake added, responding to reporters’ questions, that Scalise had been hit “in the left hip” and that, after the shooter was no longer an active threat, Scalise “was coherent and he was asking for water. He was obviously — he laid out there on his own for ten minutes. And we cut away the Jersey and put pressure on him. He was bleeding quite a bit.”
Watch below:
