The suspect who authorities say opened fire on a congressional baseball team practice this morning - wounding a congressman and several others - was an avid Bernie Sanders supporter with a checkered, and sometimes violent, past, including a police run-in just months ago for firing a rifle near homes, a Herald review of IL police records shows.
Bost said the social media messages posted by Hodgkinson are unfortunately commonplace right now in the current political climate.
Representative from Alabama Republican Mo Brooks, who was a witness to the shooting, however, said this incident wouldn't change the Republican opposition to gun control even though Congress members had been under attack this time.
The man who orchestrated the Bernie Sanders campaign in both IL and Iowa and he said that nobody he's talked to remembers Hodgkinson.
The FBI was already combing through Hodgkinson's IL home by the time his identity was released to the public.
Hodgkinson was arrested in 2006 on two counts of battery for striking a man in the face with a wood shotgun stock and for punching a woman with his fist.
According to ABC News, Hodgkinson's wife told the network that her husband moved to Virginia two months ago.
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In one of the letters, Hodgkinson described former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and their associates as traitors and accuses them of "war profiteering".
Hodgkinson, 66, was a Bernie Sanders supporter and frequent critic of Republicans according to at least 26 letters he wrote to the Belleville News-Democrat. Hodgkinson also belonged to a Facebook group called "Terminate the Republican Party".
St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson said Wednesday that Hodgkinson showed the deputy all required firearms licenses and documentation involving the high-powered hunting rifle, which he said he was simply using for target practice.
"I am sickened by this despicable act", said Senator Bernie Sanders I-Vermont. "This man does not represent our values. He is grateful for the courageous actions of US Capitol Police, first responders and colleagues", his office said in a statement. "And I said 'There's houses over that way.' But I don't think I got though to him". He ignored a reporter's attempt to ask him questions, walking briskly out of the Capitol after a vote.
According to local authorities, the 2006 charges against Hodgkinson were dropped after the victims failed to appear in court.
"I'm sorry that he did this, but there's nothing I can do about it", she said.
Richard Wagner, chief deputy of the St. Clair County sheriff's office, said afterward that Hodgkinson was told about the shooting by a journalist and has been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since the shooting.
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