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.”
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
RSS