Survivors of the 2017 congressional baseball shooting are contesting the FBI’s designation that the attacker’s motivation was “suicide by cop.”
“This was not ‘suicide by cop.’ Anybody who’s studied the police report, who was there on the ball field that day, all of us know what happened,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who was severely injured during the incident, said on Fox News on Saturday.
Referencing the assailant, the Louisiana Republican added: “He went to that ball field to target and kill Republicans. He made it clear that was what his intention was. He actually had a list of Republican members of Congress in his pocket who he was targeting to kill.”
“And for the FBI to have classified it as that, it’s disturbing, it’s offensive, and it’s inaccurate. And so we’re asking that the FBI correct this record,” he said.
“FBI Director [Christopher] Wray, who was not the director at the time this happened, and actually, to his credit, Director Wray said he would look into it. So hopefully, we’ll get this fixed because it’s a disservice to the police as well to classify it that way,” Scalise said.
Scalise said his colleague, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, first requested the FBI to change the designation during a House Intelligence Committee hearing with Wray.
Following the hearing, Wenstrup later sent the FBI a letter to formalize the request.
“I am extremely frustrated that the FBI failed to conduct thorough interviews during the initial investigation. After canvassing multiple Members of Congress present during the attack, I am not aware that any of my colleagues present that day were interviewed as witnesses, including me,” he wrote.
“As a Member who was present during the attack and the November 2017 briefing, and as a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, I request that the FBI Counterterrorism Division promptly review the investigative findings, interview all relevant witnesses, and update, as appropriate, the investigative conclusions — including an internal investigation of how the FBI reached its ‘suicide by cop’ conclusion,” the Ohio Republican added.
Several other members of Congress, staffers, and others have criticized the FBI’s designation.
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Matt Mika, a Tyson Foods lobbyist who coaches the Republican team and was shot during the incident, told Fox News that the “suicide by cop” designation is “not accurate.”
During the shooting on June 14, 2017, the lone shooter, James Hodgkinson, used an SKS rifle and a 9 mm handgun to shoot at 24 Republican members of Congress.
