Man suspected of shooting US politicians surrenders to police
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 House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early on Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.
Authorities say he also shot Senator John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette. They were injured at their residence about nine miles (15km) away.
'One man's unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota,' Democratic Governor Tim Walz said at a news conference after Boelter's arrest.
The search for Boelter was the 'largest manhunt in the state's history', Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said.
It began when Brooklyn Park officers went to check on Ms Hortman's home and saw her husband gunned down before the gunman fled.
Authorities on Sunday located a vehicle Boelter was using abandoned in rural Sibley County, where he lived, and a police officer reported that he believed he saw Boelter running into the woods, Mr Bruley said.
Police set up a large perimeter and called in 20 tactical teams, divvying up the area and searching for him.
During the search, police said they received information confirming someone was in the woods and searched for hours, using a helicopter and officers on foot, until they found Boelter.
He surrendered to police, crawling out to officers in the woods before he was handcuffed and taken into custody in a field, authorities said.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the violence likely would have continued had Brooklyn Park officers not checked on Ms Hortman's home, causing Boelter to flee.
The Hoffmans were attacked first at their home in Champin early on Saturday. A criminal complaint unsealed after Boelter's arrest indicated their adult daughter called 911 just after 2am to say a masked person had come to the door and shot her parents.
After police in nearby Brooklyn Park learned that a politician had been shot, they sent patrol officers to check on the Hortmans' home.
Brooklyn Park police officers arrived just in time to see Boelter shoot Mark Hortman through the open door of the home, the complaint says.
It says they exchanged gunfire with Boelter, who fled inside the home before escaping from the scene. Melissa Hortman was found dead inside, the complaint said.
Authorities said Boelter posed as a police officer, even allegedly altering a vehicle to make it look like a police car.
Authorities did not give a motive as they announced Boelter's arrest.
A list of about 70 names was found in writings recovered from the fake police vehicle that was left at the crime scene, said two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss details of the ongoing investigation.
The writings and list of names included prominent state and federal politicians and community leaders, along with abortion rights advocates and information about healthcare facilities, according to the officials.
A Minnesota official told the AP politicians who had been outspoken in favour of abortion rights were on the list. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.
Boelter is a former political appointee who served on the same state workforce development board as Mr Hoffman, records show, though it was not clear if or how well they knew each other.
Around 6am Saturday, Boelter texted friends to apologise 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 AP.
The shootings come as political leaders nationwide have been attacked, harassed and intimidated amid deep political divisions. Politicians 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,' Mr Walz said on Sunday.
On Sunday evening, US Senator Amy Klobuchar shared a statement from Yvette Hoffman expressing appreciation for the outpouring of public support.
'John is enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods,' Ms Hoffman said in a text that Ms Klobuchar posted on social media.
'He took nine bullet hits. I took eight and we are both incredibly lucky to be alive. We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark.'
Flowers and small American flags were placed on Sunday at the Minnesota State Capitol along with a photo of the Hortmans. People wrote messages on small notes including 'You were our leader through the hardest of times. Rest in Power'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
4 hours ago
- NBC News
Ranked choice ballots give voters more options — but make ballots harder to fill out
On Tuesday, New York City will hold primary elections for mayor and other local offices. It will be the second time the city is using 'ranked choice voting' to select the Democratic and Republican nominees for its top office. Under New York City's ranked choice rules, rather than cast their votes for just their top candidates, voters can rank as many as five preferred candidates from first through fifth. Enabling voters to rank candidates gives them an extra degree of input in a primary, but it also requires ranked choice ballots to be more complicated. In a typical non-ranked choice election, candidates have single buttons or bubbles next to their names on the ballot. In a ranked choice election, voters need the ability to select candidates as their first, second, third, etc. choices. On New York's Democratic mayoral ballot this year, that translates into 60 bubbles, spread across 12 rows and five columns. The grid style of ballot is more complex than a non-ranked one, adding new ways for voters to mismark or mistakenly fill out their ballots. While the rate of rejected ballots tends to be fairly small in ranked choice races, it happens about 10 times more often than in non-ranked races that appear on the same ballot, according to our recently published peer-reviewed research article in the journal Political Behavior. Voters can mistakenly select the same candidate for multiple rankings (called 'overranking'). They can select candidates for their first choices, leave the column blank for their second choices and select other candidates as their third choices ('skipping'). Or they can select multiple candidates as their first choices, for example ('overvoting'). Only overvoting is possible on a non-ranked ballot. By analyzing over 3 million digital ballot records from over 150 ranked choice races in New York City, San Francisco, Alaska and Maine, the research shows that in a typical ranked choice race, about 4.8% of voters mismark their ballots in at least one way. The most common type of mismarks were overranks (selecting the same candidate multiple times) and skips (leaving a ranking blank but selecting a candidate for subsequent ranks). New York City used ranked choice voting for its elections for mayor and other local offices in 2021, as well as for City Council races in 2021 and 2023. Averaging across those races, the analysis finds about 6.1% of New York City voters mismarked their ballots in at least one way. In the 2021 Democratic primary for mayor, the rate was 3.9%, while in the 2021 Republican mayoral primary, it was 6.9%. How often are mismarked ballots rejected from being counted? While mismarked ranked choice ballots are more common, they do not necessarily translate into uncounted votes. For example, in tabulating results, the New York City Board of Elections moves to the next valid ranking when it encounters a skip or an overrank. Overvotes, however, can result in ballots' being rejected — depending on where on the ballots they occur. Imagine a voter who overvotes the second ranking (by selecting two candidates as the second choice). If that voter's first-choice candidate ultimately wins the election, the overvote in the second ranking would not result in the ballot's being removed during tabulation. But if the first-choice candidate is eliminated during the tabulation process, the invalid overvote for second choice would cause the ballot to be removed from the vote count. Although about 5% of voters mismark their ballots in ranked choice races, only about 1 in 10 ballots with mismarks are 'rejected' during vote tabulation. Who mismarks their ballot? Studying ballot image data tell us how a ballot was filled out — but not the identity of the voter who cast it. That poses a challenge for understanding whether certain types of voters are likelier than others to make mistakes on their ranked choice ballots. In New York City, digital ballot records document the precinct from which each ballot came. That allows for comparisons among mismarking rates across 5,000-plus different precincts. In the 2021 Democratic primary for mayor, mismarking rates in precincts where nearly all voters were Black, according to census data, were, on average, 3 percentage points higher than in precincts with almost no Black voters. Similarly, precincts with predominantly Hispanic voters had mismarking rates 4.4 percentage points higher than the rates in those with very few Hispanic voters. Education and poverty also predicted mismarking rates on ranked choice ballots. Voters in precincts where nearly everybody has bachelor's degrees mismarked their ballots at a rate 3.3 percentage points lower than voters in precincts where almost none have college degrees. Precincts with more people living below the poverty line had more mismarked ballots than more affluent precincts.
The Herald Scotland
8 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Trump says Iran's nuclear sites were 'obliterated.' Were they?
"Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction," Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine told reporters a day after the strikes on June 22. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the main agency that assesses the scale and evolution of Iran's nuclear program, said hostilities would need to cease for it to resume inspections. The organization, housed within the United Nations, said it would hold an emergency meeting June 23. Trump said Iran's nuclear sites were obliterated It was not entirely clear what evidence or intelligence Trump was relying on when he told the world that Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity had been destroyed. He also disputed twice disputed intelligence community findings before the strike that Iran was not close to producing a nuclear weapon. "Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success," Trump said in a late-night June 21 address. "Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated." Hegseth used similar rhetoric at a morning news conference, saying that thanks to Trump's leadership, "Iran's nuclear ambitions have been obliterated." But a battle damage assessment is ongoing, Hegseth acknowledged during in the briefing. He noted it was the Pentagon's "initial assessment" its precision munitions had the desired effect. "Especially in Fordow, which was the primary target here. We believe we achieved destruction of capabilities there," Hegseth told reporters. Caine was more cautious. "It would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there," he said when asked about Iran's remaining nuclear capabilities during the same news conference. Live updates: US warns of 'heightened threat environment' after strikes on Iran nukes How much of a hit did Iran take? It was a "responsible" comment from Caine, said Simone Ledeen, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East in Trump's first administration. Whether the Iranian nuclear program was set back a decade or decades and whether there is no more nuclear program period "really needs to be determined by a systematic battle damage assessment," she said. Yet, given what the president and secretary of defense know of the bombs that were dropped and where, Ledeen added, "I don't think it's far-fetched for them to say that these sites were destroyed." Democratic lawmakers on committees that oversee the military, intelligence community and foreign policy apparatus are pushing for classified briefings to help them reach their own conclusions. "There is a lot we still don't know and we need an accurate, factual damage assessment," Senate Armed Services ranking member Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, said in a statement. Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen also said in a statement, "We are still waiting to understand the extent to which that action has deterred Iran's nuclear threat." "President Trump must now de-escalate tensions with Iran and immediately brief Congress," the New Hampshire Democrat said. Vice President JD Vance did not specify the extent of the damage to Iran's sites as he made a round of television interviews the morning after the strike. "But we know that we've set the Iranian nuclear program back substantially last night," Vance said on ABC News' "This Week" program. "Whether it's years or beyond that, we know it's going to be a very long time before Iran can even build a nuclear weapon if they want to." Iran claims its uranium stockpiles were evacuated Iran's IRIB state broadcaster claimed its stockpiles of enriched uranium were "evacuated" from all threes sites prior to the U.S. strikes, another assertion not independently verified. Russian Security Council deputy chairman of Dmitry Medvedev also said Iran's critical nuclear infrastructure appeared to be unaffected or to have sustained only minor damage. "The enrichment of nuclear material - and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons - will continue," Medvedev said in a social media thread. "A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads." Russia is an ally of Tehran's, and Medvedev is a previous Russian president. Israeli forces could try to enter Iran's nuclear sites in a sensitive operation and make a determination for itself and the United States, said Ledeen, the first-term Trump defense official. But an official assessment will have to be conducted by the IAEA, which says it can not go in until the conflict ends, for the international community to accept it. "I hope it is the end, so IAEA can get their inspectors in there sooner rather than later," Ledeen said. "You also don't want loose material getting into the wrong hands." Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard
The Herald Scotland
8 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
From immigration to women's sports, Trump gets it right
Trump timed his missive shortly after nationwide "No Kings" protests that in part criticized his immigration agenda, as well as the chaotic and violent protests in Los Angeles this month in response to ICE raids. Opinion: Democrats scream democracy is in peril ... while proving that it's absolutely fine Liberals may be freaking out, but the reality is that Trump is following through on his promises to restore safety at the southern border and to deport as many illegal immigrants as possible. It was one of the pivotal reasons Trump won a second term. And the majority of the country is still on the president's side. Polling confirms Americans want Trump to fulfill immigration agenda Immigration remains Trump's strongest issue. A recent NBC News Decision Desk poll found that 51% of Americans approve of Trump's handling of border security and immigration; 49% disapprove. The poll was conducted while Trump was sending in the National Guard and Marines to help contain rioting in LA. Similarly, a CBS News/YouGov poll from earlier in June found the majority of Americans side with Trump's deportation agenda. In that survey, 54% said they approve of the administration's program to deport illegal immigrants, and the largest group - 42% - say these policies are making the country safer. Opinion: Hey, Democrats, LA riots make Americans like me glad Trump is president However, while 55% of those surveyed say they like Trump's deportation goals, just 44% like the way Trump is fulfilling that agenda. The gap between approval of Trump's goals versus his execution of those goals is seen in other areas, too, including the economy. Let's face it: Trump is Trump, and he's consistent in his unpredictability and bravado. Voters should have known by this point what they were getting. Yet, for the most part, he is standing firm on his immigration goals. Within weeks, Trump had effectively closed the border that former President Joe Biden had opened wide. Monthly border encounters have dropped to record lows, to fewer than 10,000 a month from more than 100,000 a year ago. That means far fewer migrants face deportation after illegally entering the United States. So while Trump is getting all the Democratic outrage, his deportation numbers as of late May remain below Biden's during a similar period of time. And former President Barack Obama - darling of the left - maintains the title of "deporter in chief." Opinion: Democrats waste $20 million to learn why they lost men. Here's my free advice. Are Democrats OK? They keep getting arrested to protest Trump. But why let facts get in the way of feelings? Through protests, riots and civil disobedience, Democrats have put their feelings on full display lately. Even public officials are getting in on the performance art. In recent weeks, a growing number of people in power have decided it is politically expedient to interfere directly with the work of immigration officers. For their disobedience, these Democrats have been handcuffed or charged, which seems to have been what they wanted in the first place. The latest example is New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, who was arrested June 17 "after he linked arms with a person authorities were attempting to detain" in federal immigration court. Members of Congress, a Wisconsin judge and a mayor also have joined the ranks of those flouting the law. To what end, though, given Trump is doing what voters want him to do? Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. It's also worth noting that while progressives want you to think Trump's approval as president has tanked beyond repair, his 46.4% approval rating is higher than where Obama (45.8%) and former President George W. Bush (45.6%) were at this point in their second terms. From transgender athletes in women's sports to halting illegal immigration, Democrats keep finding themselves on the wrong side of issues that Americans care about. Good for Trump for getting it right. Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@ or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques
