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Rep. Brooks, others emerge as heroes after Alexandria shooting

Rep. Brooks, others emerge as heroes after Alexandria shooting

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, and members of the Capitol Hill Police all acted heroically in the aftermath of a shooting at a baseball practice field early Wednesday morning in which several people, including Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., were injured.

Majority Whip Scalise was shot in the hip by a man wielding a rifle who fired as many as 50 rounds at congressional Republicans during GOP practice for the congressional baseball game. Congressional staffers and Capitol Hill police were also among those shot.

Those who were injured appear to be in stable condition.

Rep. Brooks recounted the events of the shooting on CNN Wednesday morning.

“I was on deck, about to hit batting practice on the third-base side of home plate, and I hear a loud BAM,” Brooks said. “And I look around and behind third base, in the third base dugout … I see a rifle, and I see a little bit of a body, and I hear another BLAM and I realize that there’s an active shooter.”

“At the same time, I hear Steve Scalise over near second base scream. He was shot.”

“The gun was a semi-automatic,” Brooks said, describing how people at the scene scattered to find cover from the fire. Brooks made his way to the first-base dugout, where several other congressmen and staffers were hiding.

“One of them was wounded in the leg,” Brooks said. “[I] took off my belt and myself and another congressman, I don’t remember who, applied a tourniquet to slow down the bleeding.”

Brooks then recounted the courageous action of the Capitol Hill Police, who were there as a security detail and returned fire on the gunman.

“And there must have been 50 to 100 shots fired, hard to itemize them,” Brooks said. “Eventually it seems that the shooter shot both of our security detail people.”

Eventually, a member of the security detail “took the shooter down.”

Rep. Brooks said that once the gunman was neutralized, the congressmen and security detail ran to the aid of Scalise, putting “pressure on his wound on his hip,” with the help of Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, a podiatrist who served as a combat surgeon in Iraq.

“After the shooter was down … we deferred to [Wenstrup’s] judgment on what to do,” Brooks told CNN. Wenstrup “was getting some kind of scissors device to cut through the pants” to get to the wound on Scalise’s hip.

"It's hard to contain the emotions," Brooks said. "My adrenaline is racing, and of course, it's never easy to think when you see people around you getting shot and you don't have a weapon yourself."

The Congressmen were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game, in which Republicans and Democrats compete against each other to raise money for charity.

Alexandria police say the suspect is now in custody.


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