Accused Minn. Political Assassin Surrenders after 2-Day Manhunt

By Christopher Vondracek and Jeff Day

Source Star Tribune

Shooting suspect Vance Boelter’s two-day evasion from authorities ended Sunday night in a field in Sibley County, where he surrendered amid drones and SWAT teams. The arrest marked the end of an intense manhunt that had left Minnesotans across the state on edge.

Boelter, 57, was accused of posing as a police officer and assassinating state House DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in the middle of the night Saturday, as well as shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

In a news conference late Sunday, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley called the search for Boelter “the largest manhunt in the state’s history.”

After shelter-in-place orders were set in areas surrounding the legislators’ homes Saturday, a massive dragnet encircled woods and fields in Sibley County throughout much of the day Sunday. A vehicle authorities believe Boelter was in was spotted abandoned there, about an hour southwest of the Twin Cities, not far from where Boelter lived in Green Isle.

Around 7 p.m. Sunday, a Sibley County resident reported that their trail camera captured an image that “was consistent with Boelter,” according to Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, who had SWAT officers and deputies deployed to the area. “The trail cam picture alerted SWAT teams to go to that area, secure a perimeter, and with the help of drones, identify his location.”

Fletcher said that for about an hour Boelter attempted to evade arrest, but eight teams crawled in ditches to corral him.

Lt. Col. Jeremy Geiger of the State Patrol said Boelter surrendered without any use of force by law enforcement.

A criminal complaint against Boelter was quickly filed Sunday night detailing that officers saw him shoot and kill Mark Hortman. Boelter was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree attempted murder by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

The first 911 call was made Saturday by one of the children of John and Yvette Hoffman after the couple were shot multiple times, the complaint said.

Champlin police responded to the Hoffman residence at 2:05 a.m. Surveillance footage from the home showed a dark Ford SUV with police lights in the driveway. Charges say the video showed Boelter, wearing a mask, blue shirt, police vest and badge, approach the door with a flashlight. He was carrying a gun.

After he shot John and Yvette Hoffman, he fled in the SUV, the charges allege.

After Brooklyn Park police learned that the shooting victim in Champlin was a state legislator, officers were proactively sent to the Hortman residence. They arrived at 3:35 a.m. to find the Ford SUV in the driveway.

An officer watched as Boelter shot Mark Hortman through the front door, and after an exchange of gunfire, Boelter retreated inside the house and escaped, the charges said. Officers found Melissa and Mark Hortman dead inside the home.

When police searched Boelter’s vehicle, they found three AK-47 assault rifles, a 9 mm handgun and a list of names and addresses of public officials. Further searches in the area located a ballistic vest, a disassembled 9 mm firearm, mask and gold police badge. Four of the firearms recovered by police were purchased by Boelter.

A person who was familiar with Boelter spoke with investigators and positively identified him as the man on the surveillance footage from the Hoffmans’ home in Champlin, according to the charges.

At the Sunday night news conference, Gov. Tim Walz praised and thanked local, state and federal law enforcement officers for their cooperation and relentless pursuit, which included being away from their families on Father’s Day.

“One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” he said.

A nephew of the Hoffmans had announced Sunday morning that the couple, in a Twin Cities hospital, had woken up.

At their home in Champlin, bullet holes riddled the glass door, and nephew Mat Ollig said gunfire “barely missed his [uncle’s] heart.”

The 60-year-old lawmaker was shot nine times. His wife was shot eight times.

Images released by the FBI on Saturday showed Boelter wearing a facial disguise and dressed as a police officer while knocking on the door of a home.

The public also saw a closer view of the law enforcement response in the hours after the suspect slipped out of the Hortman home, which sits along a golf course in Brooklyn Park.

First responders risked their own safety to carry Hortman’s husband from the home after exchanging gunfire with the assailant.

“I don’t have time explain it,” a medic radioed, according to a 911 dispatch call obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. “The shooter is still in the house. They believe barricaded with the firearm.”

Agents later returned with a SWAT team and sent a drone into the home, where they found Melissa Hortman’s body.

On Sunday morning, it was revealed that law enforcement had detained Boelter’s wife a day earlier.

Just after 10 a.m. Saturday, the Mille Lacs County Sheriff’s Office stopped a car carrying Jenny Boelter and three relatives at a Casey’s convenience store in Onamia, off Hwy. 169, roughly 110 miles north of Green Isle.

“Our law enforcement partners from the metro that are working this case became aware that she was traveling through my county,” Sheriff Kyle Burton said.

After talking with the four for hours, authorities took them toward Milaca, a Casey’s employee said.

Howie Padilla, a Department of Public Safety spokesman, said Jenny Boelter was no longer detained by Sunday morning.

“We met with his family,” Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said, to understand more about what might be driving Boelter.

As the manhunt continued, however, key elements of the shooter’s motivation remained unknown.

Evans said Sunday night that Boelter was being interviewed at a law enforcement facility but couldn’t share where that was.

Officials said they continued to seek information from anyone who could help the investigation.

“Now begins the hard work of looking at what the motive is, looking at putting this case together, and so that’s yet to come,” Bruley, Brooklyn Park’s police chief, said Sunday night.

Politicians and law enforcement confirmed Boelter had a target “list” of up to 70 largely Democratic and pro-choice politicians, as well as addresses for businesses and Planned Parenthood locations.

The document was not a clear manifesto, however, and was scratched out on a notebook, Evans said.

Some elected officials acknowledged that law enforcement had told them they were on the list, including U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison.

Speaking on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” earlier in the day, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar reminded viewers that Boelter was a “murderous, murderous man.”

“What we’re most concerned about right now is that the next person is not a political person, but a person he just encounters,” she said.

Throughout the day on social media, speculation raged over the suspect’s motives and political beliefs.

Public records showed that Boelter had been appointed to a nonpartisan 60-member workforce board, first by Gov. Mark Dayton and subsequently by Walz.

David Carlson, one of Boelter’s Minneapolis roommates and childhood friend, described the suspect as a “strong supporter” of President Donald Trump.

Carlson said Boelter had become consumed with financial anxiety, particularly after over-leveraging himself in failed businesses.

“He’d been kind of down,” he said. “He was not as upbeat as he usually is.”

In addition to leading Praetorian Guard Security Minnesota, Boelter had said he was CEO of Red Lion Group. But, Carlson said, the firm was not a thriving business.

“He bought a couple of cars and maybe some uniforms,” Carlson said. “But it was never a real company.”

The nation’s political schism has been the backdrop for the emerging picture of Boelter as an evangelical, financially troubled Minnesotan now believed to have turned assassin.

The shootings targeting Democrats came on the day of the military parade called in Washington, D.C., by Trump and the nationwide “No Kings” protests held in response.

On Sunday morning, Trump told ABC News that Walz was a failed governor and a “grossly incompetent person.”

Walz, the state’s two-term DFL governor, said the president had not phoned him by Sunday afternoon.

Around the state, the mood felt halting and pensive throughout the day Sunday, with people unsure how to return to normalcy.

In Detroit Lakes, a district judge cited Melissa Hortman’s murder in delaying state Sen. Nicole Mitchell’s trial on charges of breaking into her stepmother’s home a year ago. The proceeding was to start on Monday.

In St. Cloud, the CentraCare health system said in a statement that the AI assistant Grok, on the social media platform X, had falsely linked the shooting to a doctor with the same last name as the suspect.

In downtown Minneapolis, memorials poured in from cultural and sporting institutions.

For many close to Hortman and Hoffman, the pain was personal, not political. In Maple Grove, the parent teacher organization at Fernbrook Elementary School, where Yvette Hoffman is a support professional, had raised nearly $70,000 for the Hoffmans through an online fundraiser.

At Hortman’s desk in the House chambers of the Capitol, a bouquet of roses rested near a photograph of her.

Walker Orenstein and Paul Walsh of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.

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