Minnesota Lawmaker Shootings Suspect Captured After Intense Multi-State Manhunt

Minnesota shootings: Vance Luther Boelter, a suspect in the killings of a state lawmaker and her husband, near his rural home.

Minneapolis —  Two state officials and a social media post by a county sheriff indicate that the man suspected of shooting two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in their homes in Sibley County was arrested Sunday night after authorities searched the area surrounding his residence following a protracted manhunt involving more than 100 officers.

Authorities had been looking for 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter, a Green Isle, Minnesota, rural town resident roughly 45 miles southwest of the Twin Cities, almost two days.

Early Saturday, a gunman opened fire on state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in the quiet Minneapolis suburb of Champlin, then drove roughly 10 miles to the adjacent suburb of Brooklyn Park, home of state Rep.

Melissa Hortman, starting the manhunt.  While Hoffman and her wife, Yvette, survived and are hospitalized in critical condition, Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot and dead.

Authorities have said that the suspect in the case pretended to be a police officer in order to enter the two legislators’ residences. 

Following the second of the two predawn strikes, the gunman left behind a terrifying collection of evidence and a vast police search after a shootout with authorities.

Early on Sunday, Green Isle law enforcement officials discovered another car linked to Boelter and took items they thought pertinent.

Interviews with people who knew Boelter and a review of his internet presence show a man who embraced his born-activated Christian beliefs, had a hodge puddle of employment experience, and divided his time between his rural residence and Minneapolis. 

Sometimes he seemed to have paid his bills by working at funeral homes, playing up his security credentials.

Police claimed they have not discovered proof of Boelter threatening politicians in the past.  They have not come across a brief Boelter memo outlining a motivation for the crimes.

Authorities still hold, however, that the shootings were planned and intentional.  Officials have claimed to have located in one of Boelter’s vehicles a list of hundreds of names including Democratic legislators and supporters of abortion rights and other leftist causes. 

Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office’s post

They also discovered “No Kings” fliers, which raised concerns for law officials about the suspect possibly wanting to target one of Saturday’s events opposing President Donald Trump.

The list included Sen. Tina Smith (D- Minnesota), well-known abortion rights advocates, and, according to a Democratic member from Wisconsin, at least eleven Democratic legislators from that state.

Authorities advised caution as the Boelter hunt stretched into Sunday, considering the suspect armed and dangerous and bolstering protection of other Democratic legislators.

Officials interviewed Boelter’s wife and relatives, who were cooperative and not brought into prison, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said in a news conference Sunday.

Sunday’s law enforcement visits at a Minneapolis house Boelter shared included his roommates.

Said David Carlson, his roommate and lifetime friend, Boelter loved his ideas to launch a security company, attended church weekly, volunteered to assist anyone, occasionally grumbled about Democratic leaders. 

Boelter had been sleeping at Carlson’s house in Minneapolis a few nights a week for the past year or two while he was working on-call shifts for funeral homes, due in large part to the distance from the Green Isle house Boelter shared with his wife.

A few months ago, Boelter quit so he could travel two weeks to Africa in search of company setup for security. 

Carlson said when he got back he worked harvesting eyeballs from deceased bodies for organ donation.

Carlson claimed he seemed to be “struggling a little bit,” but he showed no indicators of aggression once he got back from Africa.

“He wasn’t as happy as he used to be,” Carlson added. 

“He had everything including a job.  He was doing reasonably.

Carlson said Boelter struggled to start Praetorian Guard protection Services, an armed home protection company, but he was trying to get the company off the ground. 

Praetorian claims on their website that the company drives police SUVs.

That was just Vance, Carlson remarked. 

“He would merely aim to start things.  “Oh, I bought the two cars for security.”  He had neither business nor clientele, nevertheless. 

He employed none at all.  He was not monitoring security for anyone.  That was not his line of work.

Carlson claimed he never remembered ever hearing Boelter discuss the two state legislators targeted—Hortman or Hoffman. 

But Boelter occasionally denigrated other Democrats, Carlson noted.

Boelter claimed, his remarks were typical grievances about politicians; he did not voice strong opinions. 

He said Boelter backed Trump and tuned in to programs from Alex Jones’s conspiracy-filled Infowars site.  

Boelter would be offended if somebody called him a Democrat, his roommate added.

Boelter became a born-again Christian in high school, Carlson said.   “He just turned everything in his life, 100 percent,” he remarked.  “Everything in his life, he just changed.  

And he was preaching in the park, living in the park in a tent.”

He stays religious, goes to church every Sunday and is a “very caring, loving person,” Carlson added.

According to a 2023 sermon that was streamed live, Boelter told a congregation he “met Jesus” when he was 17 and wrote booklets about his experience so he could share the word of God.

He exhorted the congregation to recognize God’s plan for them.  

“When I die and go to heaven — and go to heaven — I don’t want to just listen to the other people tell their stories,” he remarked.  

“I want to tell my own tale.”

Carlson said he last spoke with Boelter at about 7 p.m. Friday, when he chatted to him through the door to his room.  

IMAGE: GOOGLE

Boelter stated he was already in bed so he would be well-rested for his nocturnal job, Carlson added.   The shootings happened many hours later.

Home surveillance footage Carlson said shows Boelter returning to their Minneapolis house at roughly six in the morning Saturday. 

He stated one of Boelter’s automobile windows had been blasted out, and a hammer was left on the passenger side of the car.

That day, Boelter texted Carlson and another buddy telling them he loved them. Carlson said.

“I made some choices, and you guys don’t know anything about this, but I’m going to be gone for a while,” Boelter wrote, according to Carlson.  

“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.”

Carlson said he called Boelter but couldn’t contact him.  

Then he said, he phoned the cops.  Saturday afternoon, officers in an armored truck kicked down the entrance to Carlson and Boelter’s home and blasted out the windows.

Walz declared during a news conference on Saturday Hortman’s slaying to be “a politically motivated assassination.” 

Walz has not had a call from Trump regarding the shootings as of Sunday afternoon; a close friend of the governor said, speaking under the anonymity given the delicate nature of the matter. 

Biden and Vice President JD Vance called and chatted with the governor on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, Trump told an ABC News reporter that he thought Walz was “a terrible governor.   I think he’s a profoundly incompetent person.”  

He then answered noncommittally on whether he would be supportive.  “But I may, I may call him.   I may call other people too,” Trump said.

Inquiries concerning whom the president had contacted on the shootings and search for a suspect went unanswered at the White House. 

Trump stated Saturday afternoon in a Truth Social post that he had been briefed on the shooting and promised the Justice Department will pursue “anyone involved to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,” he tweeted.

The Hoffmans were each shot numerous times and had emergency surgery, a relative, Mat Ollig, wrote in a Facebook post and confirmed to The Washington Post.  

Ollig, the nephew of the couple, says Yvette Hoffman “threw herself on her daughter, using her body as a shield to save her life.”

Yvette Hoffman said she was injured by eight gunshots while her husband took nine.  

Her husband is undergoing more procedures, but she noted in a text message sent online that he is “closer every hour to be out of the woods.”

Klobuchar praised Hortman as a person she grew close to as a fellow mother in politics and a public servant committed to bettering their state.

“Melissa Hortman is the most amazing person that I wish everyone in the nation knew,” Klobuchar said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” 

As a Sunday school teacher and Girl Scout leader, she detailed the efforts of the late Democratic leader on historic laws to offer paid family leave and free school lunches. 

She was outstanding.

To honor Hortman, whom Walz called “the most consequential Speaker in state history,” he directed Minnesota flags to fly at half-staff Saturday.

Two FBI investigators and a state agent returned to the Minneapolis house where Boelter lived a few times a week on Sunday morning.

They were there to interview Carlson once more as well as another roommate.

Carlson then spent almost 25 minutes talking to reporters on his doorstep.

He said he wants the public to see the compassionate person he still regards as his best friend in more whole perspective.

“I just want you folks to just not say ‘crazy right-winger gone nuts’ and that was all he is, you know,” he remarked. 

“That’s his legacy, which troubles me; nevertheless, I knew him my entire life.  She was a decent man.

He stepped back into his house crying.