Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, said he was in the batting cage Wednesday when he heard an isolated shot and then a rapid succession of five or 10 shots at the congressional baseball practice in Virginia.
Mr. Scalise was in the field, “shot but moving, and he’s trying to drag himself through the dirt out into the outfield,” Mr. Paul said in a harrowing account to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
On the other side of a nearby fence, he saw additional shots hit the ground around two aides lying low in right field.
“They’re trying to make a difficult decision, ’Do we lay here, stay low and hope he doesn’t hit us?’ … or does the shooter just advance and come closer and shoot you. So you have to make a decision at some point whether to stay or run,” Mr. Paul said.
One aide scrambled over the fence and hit behind a tree with Mr. Paul.
The senator said he couldn’t tell where, exactly, the shots were coming from, or which side of the tree to even stand on to protect himself.
Mr. Paul said the gunman continued to reload, and he heard 50 to 60 shots, as people on the wide-open field remained vulnerable.
He said the gun sounded like an AR-15 to most people there.
“Everyone probably would have died except for the fact that the Capitol Hill Police were there, and the only reason they were there was because we had a member of leadership on our team,” Mr. Paul said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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