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Jun 16, 2025
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Live Updates: Minnesota Man Is Charged With Murder of Lawmaker
Vance Boelter was captured late Sunday after a two-day manhunt that put the state on edge. He was charged with second-degree murder in the attacks, which killed a state lawmaker and wounded another.
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The largest manhunt in Minnesota’s history came to an end on Sunday when a man accused of assassinating a state lawmaker and shooting another was finally captured, after SWAT teams used drones to track him crawling through a wooded area outside Minneapolis.
The suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, was arrested and charged, concluding an extensive two-day search that rattled Minnesotans. Mr. Boelter surrendered near Green Isle, Minn., a town where he had a home with his wife and children. The police said they searched the area after a resident spotted the suspect on a trail camera.
Mr. Boelter was charged late Sunday evening with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder. New details emerged about the attacks against the lawmakers at their homes in the Minneapolis suburbs on Saturday. One shooting killed Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark; the other wounded State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.
Mr. Boelter entered the Hoffman home by introducing himself as a police officer, and he wore a rubber mask and a bogus badge during the attacks, officials say. The couple’s daughter called 911, police officers decided to check Ms. Hortman’s home. They arrived to see Mr. Boelter shoot her husband through an open door, and exchanged gunfire with him before he escaped.
If the officers had not proactively gone to the Hortman home, “I have every confidence that this would have continued throughout the day,” said Drew Evans, the head of the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Here’s what else to know:
Next steps: Mr. Boelter is being charged under a state criminal warrant, and state officials are discussing with the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors about whether to also bring federal charges, an official from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension told reporters late Sunday. Investigators are also looking into whether anyone assisted him.
The victims: Ms. Hortman served as speaker of the Minnesota House for a six-year period that ended this year and helped pass several key policies on abortion rights, marijuana legalization and medical leave. Mr. Hoffman is a fourth-term state senator and leads the Senate’s Human Services Committee. Mr. Hoffman came out of a final surgery and was recovering along with his wife, who was also shot, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said Sunday. Read more ›
The suspect: Mr. Boelter and his wife run a private security company that promotes the use of S.U.V.s similar to those used by police departments, according to its website. The couple also appears to have run a religious nonprofit. According to the suspect’s friend, he opposed abortion and had served on a state work force development board with Mr. Hoffman. Read more ›
The list: The suspect possessed a notebook that mentioned about 70 potential targets, some in neighboring states, that included politicians, civic and business leaders, and Planned Parenthood centers, according to law enforcement officials. Read more ›
After officers spotted Boelter, they used a drone to track him as he crawled through an area with thick shrubs, Faust said. Then they moved in to apprehend him, and he surrendered.
The authorities found Boelter by pursuing a resident’s tip that he had been seen on a trail camera on Sunday evening, said Elliot Faust, a deputy police chief in Brooklyn Park, Minn. After confirming that an image on the camera showed the suspect, SWAT team officers set up a one-square-mile perimeter around the spot where it had been taken and sent drones and police dogs inside, he said.
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Evans credited Brooklyn Park officers with proactively going to Representative Hortman’s home, where they found Boelter. “If that had not happened,” Evans said, “I have every confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.”
Evans said the authorities were confident that the suspect committed the violence alone. He said investigators would look into whether anyone helped him in other ways, though there was no indication of that yet.
An “alert police officer” thought he saw Vance Boelter running into the woods, says Bruley, the Brooklyn Park police chief. That led police to converge on the rural area near Green Isle, Minn., and eventually take him into custody.
Evans said the suspect was armed when he was arrested.
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Boelter is being charged under a state criminal warrant, and state officials are discussing with the F.B.I. and the U.S. State Attorney’s office whether to also bring charges at the federal level, Evans said. Investigators are still looking into whether anyone assisted him, Evans added.
Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said SWAT teams and aerial units converged on Green Isle after someone reported seeing the suspect.
Lt. Col. Jeremy Geiger of the Minnesota State Patrol said Boelter crawled to law enforcement officers and was placed in custody. No force was used in the arrest, he said.
Chief Mark Bruley of the Brooklyn Park Police Department said the manhunt was the largest in the state’s history. There were 20 SWAT teams searching for the suspect, the chief said.
The suspect was captured near the home where he lived with his wife and children, outside of Green Isle, Minn. That’s roughly an hour’s drive southwest of Minneapolis and the suburbs where the shootings took place.
Walz called for an end to political violence. “This cannot be the norm,” he said. “Now is the time for us to recommit to the core values of this country.”
At a news conference on Sunday, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota credited the Hoffmans’ daughter for “heroic actions” that he said “saved countless lives.” Charging documents indicate that a child of the Hoffmans called 911.
The suspect carried a notebook with some 70 targets.
The suspect in the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and the shooting of a second possessed a notebook that mentioned about 70 potential targets, some in neighboring states, that included politicians, civic and business leaders, and Planned Parenthood centers, according to law enforcement officials.
The suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, was in police custody on Sunday after a two-day manhunt. Officials believe he is the gunman who impersonated a police officer and fatally shot Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, early Saturday morning.
Mr. Boelter had served on a state economic board with Mr. Hoffman, though it wasn’t clear if they actually knew each other.
U.S. Senator Tina Smith, Democrat of Minnesota, said the notebook included her and several other lawmakers, all of whom are Democrats. It was not clear whether Minnesota’s other U.S. senator, Amy Klobuchar, was included, but according to Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic leader, both she and Ms. Smith were being given additional security.
At least three of Minnesota’s Democratic congresswomen were listed, according to a law enforcement officer: Representatives Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and Angie Craig.
State Attorney General Keith Ellison, another Democrat, was also mentioned, his office said.
The tally of names and locations was found among papers in a vehicle that was linked to the suspect and recovered by law enforcement officials. Other papers indicated that there may have been plans to target “No Kings” protests, which were organized throughout the country on Saturday in response to the Trump administration’s policies.
Among the targets listed were abortion providers in Minnesota, according to a spokeswoman for Senator Smith. A federal law enforcement official said the notebook included locations for Planned Parenthood and other health care centers.
The Minnesota section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said its members had been left “saddened and horrified” by the attacks. “It is unacceptable that people from within our ob-gyn community must work and live in fear as a result of providing essential reproductive health care,” the organization said in a statement.
Planned Parenthood North Central States, which covers Minnesota, said it was working with local law enforcement to increase patrols at all of its facilities. “Our doors will remain open,” Ruth Richardson, its president and chief executive, said in a statement.