Early Wednesday morning, five people were injured in the nightmarish attack on the GOP baseball team in Alexandria, Virginia. The scene as described by witnesses was truly harrowing, with the rifle-armed shooter (identified as James T. Hodgkinson), who appears to have been deliberately targeting Republicans, firing off dozens of rounds as congressional members and staffers scrambled for cover. Majority House Whip Rep. Steve Scalise was among the four people the gunman shot, suffering a wound in his hip; but the situation could have been far worse if not for the heroic actions of Capitol Police officers, two of whom were wounded, including one officer, armed with a pistol, who ignored his own wounds to confront and help finally subdue the shooter.
“I can tell you, that I think with absolute certainty, nobody would have survived without the Capitol Hill Police,” Sen. Ran Paul said on CNN. “They saved everybody’s life. Incredibly brave and deserve everyone’s praise, because, with this guy, who knows what his — how heavily armed he was, but nobody else had a weapon. So, he was just killing everyone — he would have … [The Capitol Police] deserve our gratitude for saving — it would have been a massacre without them.”
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