Multiple People Shot at Congressional GOP Baseball Game Practice

[Content Note: Violence.]

UPDATE 3: Donald Trump just made a brief statement during which he disclosed that the shooter, 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois, has died.

UPDATE 2: Hours after the shooting, it still isn't clear how many people total were shot. At least four. Fortunately, none of them have been fatally wounded. Rep. Steve Scalise is reportedly in surgery as of 11am ET, after being shot in the hip.

UPDATE: The latest information is that four people total were shot this morning. The rest of the post below has been updated to reflect the updated information.

This morning, during the GOP's practice for the traditional bipartisan baseball game, a shooter opened fire on the GOP Congresspeople who were on the field, injuring three four people, including House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise.

According to early reports, the other three people shot include at least one member of the Capitol police and at least one Congressional aide to Rep. Roger Williams. Some number of other people were treated on scene and/or transported to hospitals with injuries sustained during the chaos. None of the injuries are thought to be life threatening.

The shooter is in custody. From that alone, we could guess that he is a white man, but witnesses to the shooting have described him that way, too. They also say he appears to have been acting alone, using a rifle.

Because Rep. Scalise was there, there was a Capitol police detail present, as the majority whip is provided with security. The Capitol police were armed, so they reportedly kept the shooter from doing more damage before local police arrived on the scene.

It sounds like it could have been a lot worse. Thank Maude that it wasn't.

Obviously, the shooter is presumed to have been politically motivated, but we have no idea about the contours of that motivation at this point.

More information will become available as the investigation continues and police have an opportunity to talk to all the witnesses and the shooter.

My sympathies to the injured, and to everyone who was there and not physically injured but traumatized by this horrible incident.