The man suspected of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another crawled to officers in surrender on Sunday after they located him in the woods near his home, bringing an end to a massive, nearly two-day search that put the entire state on edge.
Vance Boelter was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder. He is accused of posing as a police officer and fatally shooting former Democratic Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early on Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.
“One man’s unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,” Governor Tim Walz said at a news conference after Boelter’s arrest.
Photo: Reuters / Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office via FacebookPhoto: Reuters / Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office via Facebook
Boelter, 57, was captured in Sibley County, a rural area about an hour southwest of the Minneapolis suburbs where the murders had occurred, police and state officials said.
Police described the search as the “largest manhunt in [the state’s] history,” with 20 SWAT teams and several agencies working to find him.
Minnesota State Patrol Assistant Chief Jeremy Geiger told reporters that Boelter had been “taken into custody without the use of force.”
Photo: Reuters
Before the murders, Boelter also allegedly attacked two others nearby — state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who survived and were treated for serious injuries, authorities said.
“The latest news is Senator Hoffman came out of his final surgery and is moving toward recovery,” Walz told reporters.
Hoffman was shot nine times and Yvette eight times, US Senator Amy Klobuchar said.
A notebook containing the names of other lawmakers and potential targets was found inside a car left by Boelter at the Hortmans’ home, which Drew Evans, head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said earlier on Sunday was not a “traditional manifesto.”
“I am concerned about all our political leaders, political organizations,” Klobuchar said on Sunday.
“It was politically motivated, and there clearly was some throughline with abortion because of the groups that were on the list, and other things that I’ve heard were in this manifesto. So that was one of his motivations,” she said.
As speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2019 to January this year, Hortman was committed to legislation that protected reproductive rights in the state, local media reported.
Trump has condemned the attacks in Minnesota on the lawmakers and their spouses.
The president was asked in a Sunday interview with ABC News if he planned to call Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate in the election Trump won last year.
“Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person,” Trump said.
“But I may, I may call him, I may call other people, too,” he said.
Authorities did not give a motive as they announced Boelter’s arrest.
Boelter is a former political appointee who served on the same state workforce development board as Hoffman, records show, though it was not clear if or how well they knew each other.
At about 6am on Saturday, Boelter texted friends to apologize for his actions, though he did not say what he had done.
“I’m going to be gone for a while. May be dead shortly, so I just want to let you know I love you guys both and I wish it hadn’t gone this way,” he wrote in messages viewed by the Associated Press.
The shootings come as political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions.
Lawmakers said they were disturbed by the attacks as Twin Cities residents mourned.
“This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences,” Walz said.
Brightly colored flowers and small American flags were placed on Sunday on the gray marbled stone of the Minnesota State Capitol along with a photo of the Hortmans.
People scrawled messages on small notes, including: “You were our leader through the hardest of times. Rest in Power.”
Pam Stein came with flowers and kneeled by the memorial. An emotional Stein called Hortman an “absolute powerhouse” and “the real unsung hero of Minnesota government.”
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS