Friday marks the seventh anniversary of the Congressional baseball ambush shooting in which Louisiana's U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise was critically wounded.
"I could sense that I was starting to fade. And I could feel my body shutting down. And, you know, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it," Scalise, the then-U.S. House majority whip, told BuzzFeed News in 2017.
Also among those struck at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia, that morning were lobbyist Matt Mika, Capitol Police Special Agent Crystal Griner and Zach Barth, a staffer for U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas. The GOP team was practicing for the annual Congressional baseball game.
The gunman, James Hodgkinson, 66, was eventually shot by police and died in the hospital later that day.
Scalise, now House majority leader, required several surgeries and months of recovery.
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy will host 'Strike Zone: The Congressional Baseball Shooting.'
On Tuesday, Fox Nation will begin streaming a new, three-part special, "Strike Zone: The Congressional Baseball Shooting," at 4 a.m. Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy will host, and a crew of around 10 have spent close to three months securing firsthand accounts from the survivors and first responders.
Doocy, on assignment with the Biden campaign last week in France, took time to discuss the new special. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
For the special, you interviewed Scalise and some of the first responders and other victims. Did you have difficulty with the first responders not wanting to toot their own horns, so to speak?
U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is seen being taken on a stretcher to a medical helicopter after being shot at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia in June 2017.
In a way, yes. For us in the D.C. area, it wasn't just a big national story, it was like a local story, this terrible shooting that happened in a baseball field nearby. I kept up with all the updates over the last couple years. I don't remember ever seeing Capitol Police Officer David Bailey go on camera, especially not from the baseball field, to detail exactly what he did and how he was the first one there to basically confront a gunman who had a much bigger gun and save who doesn't, or so congressmen with no cover.
With this special, because we were able to go back to the baseball field, you get a sense of how none of the members of Congress had any cover, but neither did any of these first responders who had to try to get this gunman away and get him down.
The story itself is so amazing to hear them tell it from the baseball field. They're all very humble, but the details are just breathtaking, and it makes it so much more remarkable that they were able to save everybody's life except for the gunman.
FBI agents work in the parking lot of the YMCA next to the baseball field at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Va., on June 15, 2017, the day after House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was shot during during a congressional baseball practice.
So you interviewed Bailey as well as Scalise at the baseball field?
Yes, the team talked to David Bailey, and I went with Scalise to the baseball field and standing there with him at second base where his life changed forever. The whole country almost changed. It was very, very powerful, having him tell it. Again, I don't think that he's done anything on camera at the baseball field in the time since.
We wanted to be very respectful of everything that he's had to go through, and so it is kind of uncomfortable asking somebody about being shot right where it happened. He told a very moving story and I can't wait for people to see it.
And David Bailey? Can you give us any details about what he told the team?
Basically, he will walk us through exactly where he was when he heard the first shots, and then he will walk viewers onto the field. It's not just a sit-down interview. He's walking people through where he was with a handgun and where this would-be assassin was with a rifle — and the movements that he made, the places that he was able to get the shooter to move until Alexandria (Virginia) Police could get there to help.
Did you make any effort to reach out to the shooter's family, anyone like that?
Yes. His wife did not respond to a request for an interview.
U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise speaks on the House floor of the Capitol in Washington on Sept. 28, 2017. To hugs and a roaring bipartisan standing ovation, Scalise returned to the House more than three months after a baseball practice shooting left him fighting for his life.
What were the biggest things that you learned about the incident in the making of this special?
I did not realize how much Brad Wenstrup did in terms of first aid as soon as the shooter was down and he could get out to police on the field to save his life. And he was able to keep him stable enough until the park police got a helicopter there that could take him to the emergency room.
Will you be touching on any changes made in security at such events since the shooting?
Yes, there has been a big increase in security that is available to the lawmakers. It seems like part of that coincides with the baseball shooting, and part of it just coincides with a huge increase in online threats to lawmakers. But, it does seem like they treat any event that lawmakers are going to be at in large numbers differently now than they did back then.
They would not have had any guys with guns there if Scalise wasn't on the practice field because it was his detail as a member of leadership that accompanied him, but nobody else had a detail. If it wasn't for the police being there, it would've been a much different situation.
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