Rand Paul: Capitol Police Prevented a ‘Massacre’

On Wednesday a gunman opened fire at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, wounding House GOP Whip Steve Scalise, an aide and two capitol hill police officers.

Morning Joe interrupted their regularly scheduled programming for a hastily arranged interview with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) who was present at the shooting.

Paul said that the bipartisan group of Senators and Congressman had been regularly meeting at the field for about two months and that the presence of Capitol police prevented a “massacre”

“One of the things that’s really fortunate, everybody probably would have died, except for the fact that Capitol Hill police were there. The only reason they were there was because we had a member of leadership on our team,” said Paul “By him being there it saved everybody else’s life because if you don’t have a leadership person there … there would have been no security there.”

Paul said that the gun sounded like an AR 15 and that the shooter managed to unload between 50 and 60 shots before being taken into custody by Capitol police.

“The Capitol Hill police, from what understanding is, incredibly brave, probably saved the lives of everybody there. Had they not been there it would have been a massacre, because there’s no escaping a guy, who has several hundred bullets. We had no weapons and no place to hide.’

Watch above

This is a developing story

[image via screengrab]

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