Congressional baseball shooting
mass shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, on 14 June 2017
On June 14, 2017, a mass shooting occurred during a practice session for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Alexandria, Virginia, US. 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson shot four people, including then U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, U.S. Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, congressional aide Zack Barth, and lobbyist Matt Majka. A ten-minute shootout took place between Hodgkinson and officers from the Capitol and Alexandria Police before officers shot Hodgkinson, who died from his wounds later that day at the George Washington University Hospital. Scalise and Majka were taken to nearby hospitals where they underwent surgery, and subsequently recovered.
Hodgkinson was a left-wing activist with a record of domestic violence from Belleville, Illinois, while Scalise was a Republican Party member of Congress. The Virginia attorney general Mark Herring concluded Hodgkinson's attack was "an act of terrorism ... fueled by rage against Republican legislators." Scalise was the first sitting member of Congress to have been shot since Democratic Arizona representative Gabby Giffords in the 2011 Tucson shooting. After initially designating the attack as "suicide by cop" the FBI later classified the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism, and the perpetrator of the shooting as a "domestic violent extremist" with a "personalized violent ideology".
Background
The shooting took place on June 14, 2017, at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. There were 24 Republican congressmen who had gathered at the park to practice for the next day's Congressional Baseball Game for Charity, an annual, bipartisan event first held in 1909. Among those at the practice, aside from Scalise, were senators Rand Paul and Jeff Flake, and Representatives Roger Williams (the team's coach), Chuck Fleischmann, Trent Kelly, Mo Brooks, Brad Wenstrup, Rodney Davis, Jeff Duncan, Jack Bergman, Mike Bishop and Joe Barton (the team's manager).
Prior to the game, the Republicans had held practices at the same time and place each morning.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Congressional baseball shooting” as mass shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, on 14 June 2017. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as mass shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, United States, on 14 June 2017. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q30278163. Authority coordinates are 38.822, -77.053. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2011 and 1909.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Congressional baseball shooting”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Congressional baseball shooting primary sources, Congressional baseball shooting archive and Congressional research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Congressional baseball shooting”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Congressional baseball shooting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.