A friend of the man identified as the suspect in a shooting Wednesday morning at a Republican congressional baseball practice described him as a political progressive who volunteered on Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
Multiple reports identified the suspected gunman as James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old from Belleville, Illinois.
Charles Orear, a 60-year-old from St. Louis, told the Washington Post on Wednesday that he met Hodgkinson while working on Sanders’ campaign in Iowa.
“He was this union tradesman, pretty stocky, and we stayed up talking politics,” Orear said. “He was more on the really progressive side of things.”
He said Hodgkinson was a “quiet guy” and expressed surprise when told about the shooting: “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mental health problems don’t recognize political affiliations.
It is unfortunate there won’t be any movement toward policies that would address the toxic mix of hopelessness and mental health problems that leads to stuff like this.
Other than changing this week’s news from Russia to Socialism.
Even if he did have mental health issues, it wont matter because he was apparently on the left, if he was a right winger then the focus would be mental health and not that but, yeah…
Mental health problems and access to AR 17s.