Unanswered Questions. The shooting of Matt Mika at the Republican Congressional baseball practice.

And, keep in mind, there was at least one Congressman that wondered if there were two shooters. And a witness leaving the YMCA says the shooter was wearing shorts and a T-shirt...that differs from other accounts that he was wearing jeans OR white coveralls.

One witness even described him as having "dark hair." That's pretty contradictory considering Hodgkinson was fair haired and going gray.

Sure, there were photos the alleged shooter took of the field, ahead of time...and an alleged hit list, too.

But the precious FBI already concluded -- they unraveled it all in about a week -- a flipping shooting targeting Congressmen: It was a lone shooter with no real motive, plan, or target.

*SCOFF*

originally posted by: Violater1

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
a reply to: Violater1

I wonder what's behind that jersey...

ETA: There does seem to be some kind of line on the left side of the photo at the bottom corner of his pillow.
ETA2: Also, it was reported he was hit 4 or 5 times in the chest and arm...not sure how many bullets in each location. I do think I read "multiple times" in the chest though.

Looks like a call lite cord. It comes in on the pt's top left and is possibly secured to the right side of his pillow.

I think you responded before I edited to note it also appears in the bend of his visible arm. (Sorry, you were responding to my other comment, not the one I edited to mention the line in the bend of his arm).

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
a reply to: Violater1

I wonder what's behind that jersey...

ETA: There does seem to be some kind of line on the left side of the photo at the bottom corner of his pillow.

ETA2: Also, it was reported he was hit 4 or 5 times in the chest and arm...not sure how many bullets in each location. I do think I read "multiple times" in the chest though.

I stand corrected.
That is a PPN line with filter.


Total Parenteral Nutrition means total nutrition, which is provided when a patient does not receive any other form of nutrition. When a patient is on Total Parenteral Nutrition, he relies on it completely. On the other hand, Peripheral Parenteral Nutrition, or PPN, is only partial. This means that the patient may be getting nutrition from other sources along with the PPN.

originally posted by: queenofswords
Which one of the police killed Hodgkinson? Has that been reported?


BTW (side note)---Hodgkinson and his wife have raised several foster children. That's odd to me because there is domestic battery on his record, among some other charges.

Oh, wow...that is an interesting thought, QoS. My BFF is a social worker, I am going to ask him about that, tonight...as soon as I am prepared to sit on the phone for an hour chatting!

***

It has only been reported that either Capitol police or Alexandria police fired the shot that brought the gunman down, as far as I know.

a reply to: Violater1

Ah...Thank you for following up with that. I did not/do not know what I am looking at. I assume you work in the medical field in some capacity.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Great thread and great eye to detail (pun intended). This is why I love ATS, people always scratching the surface to find the gems hidden below.

Seems very suspucious that he was between two officers and seemingly he was wounded before anyone else, yet no reports of shots fired in that area before the other casualties.

I'm gonna have to echo another posters thoughts; could the people in police dress have shot him? If so, why no record of the shots being fired? Silencer?

Do we have an official statement on the total of shots fired?

a reply to: MotherMayEye

I recall reading that the windshield of the black SUV, used by the Capitol Police, was also shot out, as if the shooter tried to target them in the vehicle. If so, that had to be before he was coming down the third base line, right? Unless there was a second shooter, who got away.

Huh...didn't know the vehicle and Mika were so far from where the shooter was first spotted.

Have read, today, that the FBI is claiming this might have been "spontaneous", and refusing to call it an attempted assassination. The guy took surveillance pictures of the ball field, and had a hit list, and was clearly very against any and all Republicans, but they claim it's not something planned? Now these questions.

Huh.....

So, what else are they hiding? S&F

a reply to: MotherMayEye

By saying he didn't know of Mika was a staffer or a lobbyist it sounds like Conaway is saying he didn''t know Mike Mika very well.
Trying to distance oneself from the victim of a crime is a like a giant neon sign to me.
What the sign says you can imagine for yourself.

I have to add some commentary here. Looking at the witness statements, and the map. again, it's possible Mika was hit from rounds being shot from the field, from the direction of the shooter. The shed is reported to have been hit, back behind the first base dugout, so being shot in that area is feasible. If he was hit as people were running for cover, to the shed or dugout, or wherever, they might not see him hit. What is needed is evidence showing the trajectories of all rounds fired, if possible, and analysis of all that.

Is there any sort of official mapping of the area/crime scene, that's been released? People can be off in memories, especially in stressful situations.

cough
Buck

originally posted by: LadyGreenEyes
I have to add some commentary here. Looking at the witness statements, and the map. again, it's possible Mika was hit from rounds being shot from the field, from the direction of the shooter. The shed is reported to have been hit, back behind the first base dugout, so being shot in that area is feasible. If he was hit as people were running for cover, to the shed or dugout, or wherever, they might not see him hit. What is needed is evidence showing the trajectories of all rounds fired, if possible, and analysis of all that.

Is there any sort of official mapping of the area/crime scene, that's been released? People can be off in memories, especially in stressful situations.

No official mapping. I based mine on the multiple witness accounts I read.

I can't imagine a scenario where Mike Conaway would run from first base, out the only open gate (right next to first base), and he did not see Mika shot, given his full statements. Mika was already shot by the time he saw him. It would have only taken him seconds to get out the gate and behind the first base dugout.

Conaway was out of the gate quickly and went directly behind the first base dugout where he said he saw Capitol police officers and Mika already on the ground.

Ricocheted shots were reported in the area behind the dugout...but 4 to 5 hitting Mika in the chest and arm before anyone even saw him? That's just not plausible given the physics and timeline of the shots heard.

My concern is that we will never get any clear story on how Mika was shot. The FBI needs two years to investigate and clear Hillary...8 months to investigate Weiner's sexting...but they reached their major conclusions on this shooting within a week.

a reply to: flatbush71

Clear as mud what happened.

Listen starting about :38 seconds in (somewhere around there)...there is a series of 5 or 6 shots that are much fainter than the others.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
a reply to: MotherMayEye

By saying he didn't know of Mika was a staffer or a lobbyist it sounds like Conaway is saying he didn''t know Mike Mika very well.
Trying to distance oneself from the victim of a crime is a like a giant neon sign to me.
What the sign says you can imagine for yourself.

Me, too.

I thought it was possibly telling. He surely knew the person he saw shot in the chest, by the time he recounted his story to Politico, was Matt Mika...even if he didn't know him personally, which I highly doubt.

Mike Conaway is the Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture. Matt Mika was a lobbyist dealing directly with the Committees on Agriculture. Surely, Mike Conaway knew Matt Mika.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

Just finding it odd that no one knows who Mika was when he was a lobbyist isn't necessarily a big deal. Technically, my husband is a lobbyist. He's part of a professional trade lobbying organization and has occasionally been called in to sit across from government types to discuss proposed regulations.

But just because he has done that once or twice doesn't mean that had he been there to lobby in DC (never happened and I doubt it ever would), that anyone would have known him from the man in the moon. He would have been "that staffer" to everyone there because he's not someone who is known.

a reply to: ketsuko

Fair enough. But two days later...when Conaway gives his 'oral history' to Politico Magazine...surely Conaway knows the person he saw "shot in the chest" and "behind the vehicle" was Matt Mika.

No one else was shot in the chest.

Even hours later...Conaway surely knew that person was Matt Mika..the lobbyist.

ETA: I even knew that much, hours later. And Matt Mika was working in DC as a lobbyist for Tyson Foods for SIX years. His focus was the Farm Bill and issues relating to the Committees on Agriculture. He had practiced with the republican team before. It defies logic, to me, that Conaway still could not identify him or his position up to two days after the shooting.

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
And, keep in mind, there was at least one Congressman that wondered if there were two shooters. And a witness leaving the YMCA says the shooter was wearing shorts and a T-shirt...that differs from other accounts that he was wearing jeans OR white coveralls.

One witness even described him as having "dark hair." That's pretty contradictory considering Hodgkinson was fair haired and going gray.

Sure, there were photos the alleged shooter took of the field, ahead of time...and an alleged hit list, too.

But the precious FBI already concluded -- they unraveled it all in about a week -- a flipping shooting targeting Congressmen: It was a lone shooter with no real motive, plan, or target.

*SCOFF*

Officer Cabrera has really dark hair AND he may have been wearing civilian clothes. I just read somewhere that the Capitol Hill Police were in plain clothes. I'll see if I can dig it up and post link.

*** If the security detail were in plain clothes it would explain Jeff Flake yelling "are you friendly?!"

why go through all that hassle and do it out in the open with a high chance of failure when they could have just sent a hit man to mikas house while he slept?

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
why go through all that hassle and do it out in the open with a high chance of failure when they could have just sent a hit man to mikas house while he slept?

Maybe because it doesn't fit under the "lone gunman targeting Republicans" story?. Take down shooter, end of story.

If Scalise always has 2 officers for security detail traveling with him then why did he have a third one that day? Cabrera was also assigned to him.

One more thing to add about Hodgkinson was he and his wife had a teen age foster daughter who committed suicide by dousing herself in gas and lighting it. I can't help but think this was the act of a sexually abused child who saw no other way out. She killed herself in 1996.

I've listened to the video about 20 times now and several things strike me as odd:
1) Hiding behind a chain link fence will not protect you from bullets.
2) His voice seems to lack much stress. nor is his breathing excited or irregular.
3) What kind of dumb ass question is asking "Is he alright?" knowing damn well nobody has been out to check on Scalise yet.

There is a variety of different sounds of gunfire. The first is definitely a semi-automatic rifle imo. We then hear other weapons being discharged much closer to the camera but there are also shots that are much quieter than either of those. There is also a booming sound that is very much like a shotgun but could be large caliber handgun although it is unlikely Capitol police would carry something like a .44 magnum. Changes in the shooter's position and changes in camera position would also change the sounds being heard. You can hear a couple of distinct ricochets as well as echoes although very few shots give off distinct echoes most likely caused by the cinder block buildings and cars nearby.

Someone with a good audio program could break down the gunfire sounds by frequency curves and volume. Such an analysis could uncover the number of guns fired during the event.