Suspect in custody after shooting Minnesota lawmakers while posing as officer, ABC News says
Bullet holes mark the front door of Minnesota state Senator John Hoffman, who was shot alongside his wife, Yvette, in what is believed to be an attack by 57-year-old suspect Vance Luther Boelter, who is also the lead suspect in the shooting deaths of senior Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Marc, in Champlin, Minnesota, U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans
By Tom Polansek and Nathan Layne
Police on Sunday arrested a man who allegedly shot dead a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband while posing as a police officer, according to ABC News, citing several sources.
ABC News said the man was arrested near his farm near Green Isle, Minnesota, but Minnesota Department of Public Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the arrest.
A massive manhunt has been underway following the shooting deaths of Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, which Governor Tim Walz characterized as a "politically motivated assassination."
Authorities had said earlier that they had found a car, hat and other items belonging to the suspect shooter, Vance Luther Boelter, 57, in a rural area southwest of Minneapolis, but had not found him yet.
"We're certainly operating as though he's still alive, and believe he is at this time," Drew Evans, head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, told a news briefing before the ABC news report.
Boelter fled on foot early on Saturday when officers confronted him at Hortman's Brooklyn Park home.
Police say the same gunman that killed Hortman had earlier shot and wounded another Democratic lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette at their home a few miles away, authorities said.
Hoffman was undergoing surgery after being hit with nine bullets and "is closer every hour to being out of the woods," Yvette said in a text message posted to social media by U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat.
"We are both incredibly lucky to be alive," Yvette said in the message.
Authorities in Sibley County, about an hour by car from the scene of the crime, instructed residents to keep their doors locked after finding the suspect's car.
The location of the car in Faxon Township is about 6.4 km east of Boelter's listed home address in Green Isle, which was searched by law enforcement officers on Saturday.
The gunman had left behind a different vehicle outside Hortman's house in suburban Minneapolis that resembled a police SUV, including flashing lights, and contained a target list of other politicians and institutions, officials said.
Boelter has links to evangelical ministries and claimed to be a security expert with experience in the Gaza Strip and Africa, according to online postings and public records reviewed by Reuters.
The Minnesota Star Tribune, citing law enforcement officials, reported the target list included abortion providers and several dozen Minnesota Democrats, including Walz, who was also the Democratic vice presidential candidate last year, and Klobuchar, a 2020 presidential candidate.
"There clearly was some through line with abortion, because of the groups that were on the list. So that was one of his motivations," Klobuchar said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The killing was the latest in a series of high-profile episodes of U.S. political violence, including the attack on former Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband at their home in 2022, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump during last year's presidential campaign, and an arson attack at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's house in April.
GUNMAN POSED AS OFFICER
Damon Voight, who lives down the road from Boelter's house in a rural area of Green Isle, said his wife was afraid with the suspect on the loose.
"My wife is freaked out," Voight said. "She's like, 'We've got guns in the house, right?'"
The city of Champlin, home to the Hoffmans, said it shut down its annual Father Hennepin festival for the weekend, which included live music and a carnival.
Outside the state capitol in St. Paul, a small memorial had taken shape, with flowers, American flags and handwritten messages on yellow post-it notes.
"Justice for Melissa," read one note, with a drawing of a heart on it.
Klobuchar said she had seen both Hortman and Hoffman at a political dinner on Friday, just hours before they were shot.
"We started out together in politics, moms with young kids, and somehow she was able to balance getting to know every door, knock on every house in her district, while raising two children - Girl Scout leader, she taught Sunday school," the U.S. senator said of Hortman, 55.
The attacks started around 2 a.m. (0700 GMT) on Saturday, when authorities said the gunman shot the Hoffmans in their home before driving several miles to Hortman's home in neighboring Brooklyn Park.
The FBI released photos of the suspect wearing a rubber mask and a police-like uniform.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
ICE protests in LA are forcing a tough choice on Democrats
Until a few days ago, most Americans probably had never heard the name Alex Padilla. The 52-year-old Democrat, who serves as California's senior U.S. senator, is about as mild-mannered and low-key as politicians come. But then federal agents decided to drag him from a news conference in Los Angeles, shoving him to the ground and handcuffing him, all for having the temerity to ask a question of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "If this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question,' an emotional Padilla told reporters on Thursday in a clip that has since gone viral, "you can only imagine what they're doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country.' Now Padilla, whose parents came to the U.S. as undocumented immigrants from Mexico, is being lauded as a hero. And the policy views he has long held about creating more protections and pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants are now being heard by more Americans. It's just one more way that U.S. President Donald Trump's contentious decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles, over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, has pushed the state's brand of unapologetically progressive, resistance-style politics back to the forefront of the Democratic Party. So much for focusing on the price of eggs. Several Democrats now sound like Padilla, who has spent a career advocating for protections for long-term undocumented residents. At a congressional hearing on Thursday, for instance, Illinois' JB Pritzker admonished Republicans that "it's wrong to tear children away from their homes and their mothers and fathers who have spent decades living and working in our communities.' In the short term, this has mostly been popular with the Democratic base, as evidenced by the swell of grassroots energy as Americans have taken to the streets in many cities this week to protest immigration raids in solidarity with the people of Los Angeles. Many more are likely to come out on Saturday for the "No Kings' protests during the Army's 250th anniversary parade in Washington, which Trump is rebranding as his own to celebrate his birthday. In the long term, though, putting Californians in charge of messaging could cause some headaches. As the rightward shift among voters in the last election made abundantly clear, the state's politics don't always translate to other parts of America. Therefore, for months, many Democrats have been trying to distance themselves from anything that smacks of "progressive,' figuring such politics were the undoing of Californian and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Even Newsom, widely expected to run for president in 2028, has previously called his party "toxic.' Trump is clearly betting he is on the right side of public opinion — and he might be correct. Polls consistently show that voters tend to give Republicans higher marks than Democrats on immigration policy and border security. But as masked federal agents have gone about carrying out Trump's mass deportation plan, indiscriminately raiding farms, car washes and Home Depot parking lots, smashing car windows and breaking up families live on TikTok, polls have started to show some cracks in public opinion. A recent poll from YouGov found that half of Americans disapprove of the president's handling of deportations, while 39% approve and another 11% are unsure. Another poll from CBS News found that most Americans believe the administration is prioritizing "dangerous criminals.' But of those who realize that's not true, 58% disapprove of Trump's deportation program. This could provide an opening for Democrats who — like Padilla and Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — keep telling the stories of law-abiding undocumented immigrants — from men deported from jobs they've had for decades at car washes to a weeping 12-year-old boy whose parents were deported while working at a farm. "He has no brothers, no sisters, no family,' the governor said, his voice cracking. "He literally is on his own.' One thing is for sure: California Democrats are now unified in forcefully opposing Trump and in standing up for progressive values and are unlikely to back off or change course, even if some in the national party would prefer to change the subject. Quite simply, immigration is an unavoidable topic in a state with millions of residents who are undocumented and living in mixed-status households. "You had Democrats kind of going at each other about the budget, about wildfire relief, about homelessness funding and things like that,' said Raphael Sonenshein, a longtime political analyst in California and executive director of the Haynes Foundation in Los Angeles. "And this just overshadows it.' Newsom has hopped off the fence that he has been straddling ever since January, when fires leveled parts of Los Angeles and he suddenly found California was in need of billions of dollars in federal disaster aid (which Republicans still haven't agreed to). In a speech on Tuesday, he warned of authoritarianism. "Trump's government isn't protecting our communities. They are traumatizing our communities. And that seems to be the entire point.' In many ways, this moment is what Democrats at all levels of California's government have long been girding for. As Rep. Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles told MSNBC: "This is something that President Trump and his adviser, Stephen Miller, always had in mind — this confrontation between California and their federal government.' Representative Maxine Waters, also of Los Angeles, was more blunt: "He's trying to make an example out of us.' Meanwhile, Los Angeles is a tinderbox of uncertainty. The question of whether Trump has the legal right to keep the National Guard in Los Angeles, much less send in the Marines for a total fighting force that would outnumber those stationed in Iraq and Syria, won't be answered until at least next week. That's when a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider a lower court order it paused late Thursday that would've returned control of the troops to Newsom. "In the end, California is going to rally around itself,' a member of the state assembly, Isaac Bryan, told me recently. We'll see how long the Democratic Party rallies around California. Erika D. Smith is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.
Yomiuri Shimbun
7 hours ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Police Arrest Vance Luther Boelter for Allegedly Shooting Minnesota Lawmakers While Posing as Officer
Ramsey County SheriffÕs Office via Facebook/Handout via REUTERS A handout photo posted by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office appears to show Vance Luther Boelter, 57, the suspected gunman in the shooting deaths of a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband, in custody, at an unidentified location, released June 15, 2025. MINNEAPOLIS, June 15, (Reuters) – Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was arrested on Sunday for allegedly killing a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband while posing as a police officer, Governor Tim Walz said. A massive manhunt had been underway following the shooting deaths on Saturday of Melissa Hortman, the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, which Governor Tim Walz characterized as a 'politically motivated assassination.' Authorities said Boelter also shot and wounded another Democratic lawmaker, state Senator John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette at their home a few miles away. Boelter was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree attempted murder, according to a Hennepin County criminal complaint. Walz said Hoffman came out of his final surgery and was moving towards recovery.
The Mainichi
8 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Authorities still searching for suspect in shooting of 2 Minnesota state lawmakers
BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. (AP) -- Hundreds of law officers fanned out across a Minneapolis suburb Saturday in pursuit of a man who authorities say posed as a police officer and fatally shot a Democratic state lawmaker in her home in what Gov. Tim Walz called "a politically motivated assassination." Authorities said the suspect also shot and wounded a second lawmaker and was believed to be trying to flee the area. Democratic former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in their Brooklyn Park home. Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were injured at their Champlin address, about 9 miles (about 15 kilometers) away. Authorities identified the suspect as 57-year-old Vance Boelter, and the FBI issued a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to his arrest and conviction. Authorities displayed a photo taken Saturday of Boelter wearing a tan cowboy hat and asked the public to report sightings. Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said investigators obtained video as well. He did not give details on a possible motive. 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. The early morning attacks prompted warnings to other elected officials around the state and the cancellation of planned "No Kings" demonstrations against President Donald Trump, though some went ahead anyway. Authorities said the suspect had "No Kings" flyers in his car and writings mentioning the names of the victims as well as other lawmakers and officials, though they could not say if he had any other specific targets. A Minnesota official told The Associated Press that the suspect's writings also contained information targeting prominent lawmakers who have been outspoken in favor of abortion rights. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. The shootings happened at a time when political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions. "We must all, in Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence," Walz, a Democrat, said at a news conference. "Those responsible for this will be held accountable." The governor also ordered flags to fly at half-staff in Hortman's honor. Law enforcement agents recovered several AK-style firearms from the suspect's vehicle, and he was believed to still be armed with a pistol, a person familiar with the matter told AP. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. An overnight shooting Police responded to reports of gunfire at the Hoffmans' home shortly after 2 a.m., Champlin police said, and found the couple with multiple gunshot wounds. After seeing who the victims were, police sent officers to proactively check on Hortman's home. There they encountered what appeared to be a police vehicle and a man dressed as an officer at the door, leaving the house. "When officers confronted him, the individual immediately fired upon the officers who exchanged gunfire, and the suspect retreated back into the home" and escaped on foot, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said. Multiple bullet holes could be seen in the front door of Hoffman's home. John and Yvette Hoffman each underwent surgery, according to Walz. "We are cautiously optimistic they will survive this assassination attempt," the governor said at a morning news conference. Trump said in a statement that the FBI would join in the investigation. "Our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and the FBI, are investigating the situation, and they will be prosecuting anyone involved to the fullest extent of the law. Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!" Two Democratic lawmakers targeted Hortman, 55, had been the top Democratic leader in the state House since 2017. She led Democrats in a three-week walkout at the beginning of this year's session in a power struggle with Republicans. Under a power sharing agreement, she turned the gavel over to Republican Rep. Lisa Demuth and assumed the title speaker emerita. Hortman used her position as speaker in 2023 to help champion expanded protections for abortion rights, including legislation to solidify Minnesota's status as a refuge for patients from restrictive states who travel to the state to seek abortions -- and to protect providers who serve them. Walz called her a "formidable public servant, a fixture and a giant in Minnesota." "She woke up every day, determined to make this state a better place," he said. "She is irreplaceable." Hortman and her husband had two adult children. The initial autopsy reports from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office gave their cause of death as "multiple gunshot wounds." The reports said Melissa Hortman died at the scene while her husband was pronounced dead at the hospital. Hoffman, 60, was first elected in 2012 and was chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He and his wife have one daughter. State Patrol Col. Christina Bogojevic asked people "out of an abundance of caution" not to attend "No Kings" protests. Bogojevic said authorities did not have any direct evidence that the protests would be targeted, but noted the "No Kings" flyers in the car. Organizers announced that all demonstrations in the state were canceled, but many people still showed up for protests at the Capitol and elsewhere in the Twin Cities area. The suspect Boelter was appointed to the workforce development board in 2016 and then reappointed in 2019 to a four-year term that expired in 2023, state records show. Corporate records show Boelter's wife filed to create a company called Praetorian Guard Security Services LLC with the same Green Isle mailing address listed for the couple. On a website for the business, Boelter's wife is listed as president and CEO, while he is listed as director of security patrols. The homepage says it provides armed security for property and events and features a photo of an SUV painted in a two-tone black and silver pattern similar to a police vehicle, with a light bar across the roof and "Praetorian" painted across the doors. Another photo shows a man in black tactical gear with a military-style helmet and a ballistic vest. An online resume says Boelter is a security contractor who has worked in the Middle East and Africa, in addition to past managerial roles at companies in Minnesota. Boelter texted friends at a Minneapolis residence, where he had rented a room and would stay one or two nights a week, to say he had "made some choices," the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. In the messages, read to reporters by David Carlson, Boelter did not specify what he had done but said: "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. ... I'm sorry for all the trouble this has caused." A former next-door neighbor in Inver Grove Heights, where Boelter used to live, said he hardly knew him but remembers his daughters because they kayaked and ice skated on the pond behind the homes. "It's really sad for the kids, very, very nice kids," Michael Cassidy said. He added that the suspect's wife once came over to pray with his wife and daughter. Massive search Hundreds of police and sheriff deputies, some in tactical gear with assault-style weapons, were scattered throughout the town. Some checkpoints were set up. Police lifted a shelter-in-place order in the afternoon, saying they had reason to believe the suspect was no longer in the area. "This is crazy, someone going after representatives," said Brooklyn Park resident Douglas Thompson, 62. "This is wrong. I'm hoping they'll catch them." Political violence Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican from Cold Spring, called the attack "evil" and said she was "heartbroken beyond words" by the killings. The shootings are the latest in a series of attacks against lawmakers across parties. In April a suspect set fire to the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, forcing him and his family to flee during the Jewish holiday of Passover. The suspect said he planned to beat Shapiro with a small sledgehammer if he found him, according to court documents. In July 2024, Trump was grazed on the ear by one of a hail of bullets that killed a Trump supporter. Two months later a man with a rifle was discovered near the president's Florida golf course and arrested. Other incidents include a 2022 hammer attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in their San Francisco home and a 2020 plot by anti-government extremists to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and start a civil war. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he asked Capitol Police to "immediately increase security" for Minnesota Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. He also asked Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican, to hold a briefing on member security. "Condemning violence is important but it is not enough," Schumer said on the social platform X. "We must also confront the toxic forces radicalizing individuals and we must do more to protect one another, our democracy, and the values that bind us as Americans."
