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Routine recreation suddenly turned into terror early Wednesday near Washington, D.C., and three U.S. House members from Michigan are among the shaken survivors.
Republicans at a charity baseball game practice interrupted by gunfire in Alexandria, Va., included Mike Bishop of Rochester, John Moolenaar of Midland and Jack Bergman of northern Michigan. A party colleague, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, is hospitalized with a hip wound.
Scalise, as a congressional leader, is accompanied in public by armed bodyguards. "They are the true heroes today for taking the gunman down," Bergman tells WDIV.
Four others also were shot -- the two Capitol Police officers who returned fire, a congressional aide and a lobbyist. The 66-year-old rifleman, James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., died after being wounded by the officers at the ballfield.
"There was so much gunfire, you couldn’t get up and run," Bishop tells The New York Times. "Pop, pop, pop, pop — it’s a sound I’ll never forget.”
When "the second shot rang out, we knew at that point it was gunfire, not fireworks," says Bergman in the Detroit TV interview.
Lawmakers and aides were practicing the day before a yearly fund-raising game between Democrats and Republicans, a century-old congressional tradition. Democrats were at another field Wednesday.
Bishop, who was there with a staff member (also unhurt), adds vivid details:
“If not for the [security] detail who stepped up with basic revolvers, we would’ve all been dead. . . . Ting, ting, ting, ting. He was hunting us at that point.
"There was so much gunfire, you couldn’t get up and run. Pop, pop, pop, pop — it’s a sound I’ll never forget.”
In a phone interview with WWJ, the Metro Detroiter adds:
“As we were standing here this morning, a gunman walked up to the fence line and just began to shoot. I was standing at home plate and he was in the third base line.
“He had a rifle that was clearly meant for the job of taking people out, multiple casualties, and he had several rounds and magazines that he kept unloading and reloading. . . .
“The only reason why any of us walked out of this thing, by the grace of God, one of the [security] folks here had a weapon to fire back and give us a moment to find cover. We were inside the backstop and if we didn’t have that cover by a brave person who stood up and took a shot themselves, we would not have gotten out of there and every one of us would have been hit — every single one of us.
“He was coming around the fence line and he was looking for all of us who had found cover in different spots. But if we didn’t have return fire right there, he would have come up to each one of us and shot us point-blank.”
A gripping account also comes from Bergman, the northern Michigan congressman and a former Marine Corps lieutenant. He also was near home plate when the attack began, he tells WDIV:
"I was standing right next to the batting cage. It was my turn to hit next. . . . First shot rang out and of course you look, and first question is what is it? Then the second shot rang out and we knew at that point it was gunfire, not fireworks.
"You could tell where it was coming from. . . . It was somewhere behind the third base dugout.
"You could not see from my position who it was, how many, whatever. So I just basically went into a low crawl and crawled behind the first base dugout and listened. It appeared as though the shooter was moving around the outside of the perimeter moving towards the backstop.
"So once that was the situation, then I along with a couple of other folks who were behind the dugout crawled around and went down into the dugout in case the shooter came all around behind the backstop.
"Everybody was jumping at that point and I was focused on my field of vision knowing where the gunshot sound had come from. So I did a quick scan and then kept moving because people were pretty much going in every which way.
"You don't really expect that at a baseball practice at a public field. There are several of our folks who have experience, whether it be in law enforcement or in military, and by in large there were people stepping up -- especially Congressman Scalise's security detail. They are the true heroes today for taking the gunman down."
We're learning more about motive, but this is a good time to reflect on division and unity. We're all human. We're more the same than not.
— Rep. Jack Bergman (@RepJackBergman) June 14, 2017
