James Hodgkinson, the shooter who critically injured Majority House Whip Steve Scalise at a Virginia ballpark on Wednesday, spoke to the media about his anger at rich elites, it has emerged.

Video footage from an Occupy event in downtown St Louis, Illinois, in 2011 shows Hodgkinson complaining about being oppressed by the wealthy.

'The 99 per cent are getting pushed around and the one per cent don't give a damn. So, we got to speak up for the whole country,' Hodgkinson told Fox 2 News.

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GOP baseball shooter James Hodgkinson is seen here in 2011 at an Occupy St Louis protest. He told reporters he was sick of the 'one per cent' pushing around the '99 per cent'

On Wednesday morning Hodgkinson opened fire on GOP lawmakers while they practiced for a charity baseball game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (right) was critically injured

Hodgkinson, a rabid anti-Trump campaigner, moved from St Louis to Virginia two months ago, and had been living out of his car before the shooting.

His Facebook account was filled with furious invective about right-wing politicians, and messages hailing left-wing heroes Bernie Sanders and Rachel Maddow. He had also helped with Sanders' 2016 presidential bid.

His posts included remarks such as 'Trump is guilty and should go to prison' and 'Trump is a traitor. Trump has destroyed our Democracy. It's time to destroy Trump & Co.'

Family members said he was distraught after Trump's victory in the election, and had been living out of gym bags in Alexandria after he left St Louis.

But even before the election he had been expressing dissent about income inequality and the direction of America in local newspapers and online.

In 2011, he praised Occupy protesters in New York and Boston who he said 'are tired of our do-nothing Congress doing nothing while our country is going down the tubes.'

And in 2012, he wrote: 'I have never said "life sucks," only the policies of the Republicans.'

Hodgkinson's brutal attack on the baseball-playing GOP lawmakers, which saw four people - including two cops - injured and ended with his death, was not the first time he had given in to violence.

Hodgkinson, who was shot dead by police, had complained for years about income inequality and conservative politics, and more recently complained about Donald Trump

Hodgkinson had become 'distraught' after Trump won and moved out of his Illinois home to live in a car in Virginia two months ago, his family said

In 2006, he marched into his female neighbor's home to retrieve his underage daughter, pulling the girl out by her hair.

The daughter then fled and hid in the neighbor's car along with the neighbor, but Hodgkinson got access, punched the woman in the face, cut the girl's seatbelt and - along with his wife - pulled the girl out of the car.

He was not convicted.

Lyndon Evanko of Belleville, Illinois, a now-retired lawter who defended Hodgkinson in that incident, said he was 'a pushy little b*****d, an in-your-face kind of guy,'

'He believed what he believed and he wasn't going to take any s**t from anybody,' Evanko said.

'He was a bit of a misanthrope. He came across as a very irascible, angry little man, but not somebody I would expect to do something like this.

'I would have clients I would suspect for doing something like this, but he's not the one I would have pegged for it. He never had a felony. It was all penny-ante stuff.'

Evanko represented Hodgkinson again in 2009, after he was ticketed for doing work without the proper permits.

'Even with that, he had a temper,' Evanko said, quoting him: '"What are they charging me for? I know what I was doing. So what if I didn't have the paperwork?"'

However, Hodgkinson could be more placid with those who shared his views.

Charles Orear, who worked with him on Sanders' presidential run, told The Washington Post: 'I met him on the Bernie trail in Iowa, worked with him in the Quad Cities area.

'He was this union tradesman, pretty stocky, and we stayed up talking politics. He was more on the really progressive side of things.'

He added that Hodgkinson was 'quite mellow'.

Hodgkinson (seen left in 2006, after he punched a female neighbor and right more recently) died in hospital after police shot him. He injured the cops, but they are expected to recover

On Wednesday night Illinois Representative Rodney Davis told Fox News Politics that 'political rhetorical terrorism' was to blame for the attack.

Davis was one of the men present at the GOP ballgame when Hodgkinson opened fire.

'This political rhetoric and political discourse that has led to hate has led to gunfire,' he said.

'I never thought I'd go to a baseball practice for charity and have to dodge bullets. This has got to stop, and it's got to stop today.'

He added: 'We've got to ratchet down the rhetoric that we've seen, not only on social media, but in the media, in the 24-hour news cycle.

'These are the things that have to stop. this is the result, I believe, of political rhetorical terrorism. That has to stop.'