In a media interview Wednesday, a childhood friend of the GOP baseball shooter claimed that James Hodgkinson “wasn’t evil.”
“He was always happy-go-lucky,” the friend said to reporters. “It just took me by surprise when I saw it on the news today that he did what he did.”
The friend said he grew up with Hodgkinson, who went by “Thomas” or “Tommy,” and last saw him two years ago.
The description of Hodgkinson differs drastically from that of people who encountered him in the month before the shooting. The mayor of Alexandria, VA said Hodgkinson appeared to be living out of his gym bag, and local restaurant workers described him as “creepy.”
“I want people to know he wasn’t evil,” the friend said, “that he was tired I guess of some of the politics going on.”
“I don’t know his politics, I don’t know what he thought about different things, I just know that, to me, he was a nice guy.”
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