KARE 11
Jun 16, 2025
Federal law enforcement officials reveal Boelter stopped at two other lawmakers' homes on the night of the shooting.
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/l...
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Now breaking news from CARE 11.
[JOSEPH THOMPSON, ACTING U.S. ATTORNEY] Against Vance Luther Boelter for his horrific attack on our state and our elected representatives. Political assassinations are rare, they strike at the very core of our democracy. But the details of Boelter's crime are even worse. They are truly chilling. It is no exaggeration to say that his crimes are the stuff of nightmares. Boelter stalked his victims like prey. He went to their homes, held himself out as a police officer, and shot them in cold blood.
Now there's been a lot of information and misinformation out there about Boelter's crimes. We have filed a detailed 20 page complaint and affidavit that sets forth what happened in this case. I'd like to share some of that information with you now.
In the early morning hours of June 14th. Boelter went to the homes of 4 Minnesota state politicians with the intent to kill them.
Boelter first traveled to the home of Minnesota state senator John Hoffman in Champlain, Minnesota. Boelter arrived at the senator's home disguised as a police officer. He arrived in a black SUV with emergency lights turned on, and with a license plate that read "POLICE". Boelter wore a black tactical vest and body armor. He carried a flashlight, and a Baretta 9 millimeter handgun. He also wore a hyper realistic silicon mask.
Hyper Realistic Mask Studio
Senator Hoffman had a security camera. I've seen the footage from that camera, and it is chilling. Boelter knocked on Senator Hoffman's front door and repeatedly shouted, "This is the police. Open the door." Senator Hoffman and his wife Yvette came to the door. When they opened the door, Boelter shined the flashlight in their faces, and said there had been a shooting reported in the house. Boelter asked if they had any weapons. When Boelter lowered his flashlight, which he had shined in their face, they realized that he was not a police officer. They shouted out, "You're not a cop, you're not a police officer." Boelter then announced, "This is a robbery", and forced himself into their home. When Senator Hoffman attempted to push Boelter out and stop him from entering his home, Boelter shot him repeatedly. Boelter then shot Miss Hoffman repeatedly. Boelter fled the scene, and the Hoffman's daughter called 911. Fortunately, the Hoffmans survived, although they remained hospitalized.
After shooting Senator Hoffman and his wife Boelter traveled to the home of another Minnesota state representative in Maple Grove, Minnesota. Video surveillance showed that Boelter rang the doorbell at the state representative's house at approximately 2:24 a.m., on Friday night. Again, he was dressed as a law enforcement officer, wearing a tactical vest and body armor, carrying a handgun and a flashlight, and wearing that same hyper realistic silicon mask. Again, the images, as you can see on the screen are haunting. Fortunately, the state representative was not home. She and her family were gone on vacation, and so Boelter left.
Boelter then traveled to the home of a Minnesota state senator who lived in New Hope, Minnesota. He parked in the street in that same black SUV with the police license plate.
At about 2:36 a.m. on Friday night, after learning of the shooting of Senator Hoffman, New Hope police dispatched an officer to conduct a wellness check on the state senator who lived in New Hope. When the New Hope officer arrived at the scene, she saw Boelter's black SUV parked down the block with the lights on. The New Hope police officer believed that Boelter was a police officer who had been dispatched to the scene to check on the status of the state senator. The New Hope police officer pulled up next to Boelter in his car, rolled down her window, and attempted to speak with him. Boelter did not respond. According to the officer, he just sat there and stared straight ahead.
Hyper Realistic Mask Studio
So the New Hope police officer, who had been dispatched to the scene, proceeded to the state senator's home. And she waited for other law enforcement to arrive. When they did, by the time they did, Boelter had left the scene.
Boelter then traveled to Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and the home of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman. At approximately 3:30 a.m., Boelter arrived at Representative Hortman's house in his black SUV with the police license plates. He parked in the driveway, and left the emergency lights on his SUV flashing, as if he was a police officer. Boelter approached Representative Hortman's home again dressed as a police officer, wearing the tactical vest and body armor and wearing that hyper realistic mask. He was armed and carrying a flashlight. Before he entered the home, 2 Brooklyn Park police officers arrived at the scene. They too had been dispatched to check on Senator and Representative Hortman after learning of the shooting of Senator Hoffman. When they arrived at the scene, they saw Boelter's black SUV parked in the driveway with the emergency lights flashing, and they saw Boelter standing in front of the house, several feet from the door. When Boelter saw the officers get out of the car, he drew his weapon and began firing. He rushed into the house through the front door, firing into it. He repeatedly fired into the house, and when he entered, he murdered Representative Portman and her husband, Mark. The Brooklyn Park police officers fired at Boelter as he rushed into the home, but he escaped into the home, and out the back.
Officers recovered Boelter's 9 millimeter Baretta, along with the body armor and the mask, behind the home, along his path of flight when he fled on foot. They later searched Boelter's car, where they found 5 more firearms, including assault style rifles and a large quantity of ammunition. Boelter also had in his car notebooks containing a list of more than 45 Minnesota state and federal elected officials, including Representative Portman.
Now Boelter planned his attack carefully. He researched his victims and their families. He used the Internet and other tools to find their addresses and names, the names of the family members. He conducted surveillance of their homes, and took notes about the location of their homes. He also prepared in other ways. He concealed himself as a police officer outfitting his black SUV with police lights and a police license plate, wearing a black tactical vest and body armor, carrying a police flashlight, and a handgun. And of course, he wore that hyper realistic silicone mask. That's seen on the surveillance videos. The video of his arrival and shooting of Senator Hoffman is truly chilling. Again, it's no exaggeration to say this is the stuff of nightmares.
There's a photo of the firearms found in Boelter's abandoned SUV. Based on these crimes, we brought a federal complaint charging Boelter with an array of federal charges. Counts 1 and 2 charge him with stalking. Count one charges them with stalking Representative Melissa Hortman using interstate facilities, and that's Title 18 United States Code 2261. The statutory penalties there are life in prison. Count 2, similarly, charges him with stalking state senator John Hoffman using interstate facilities. The statutory, the maximum penalty of that count is 20 years in prison. Counts 3 and 4, charged Boelter with the murder of Melissa, and the Hortmans, using a firearm in violation of 18 USC 924J. And these are punishable by term of life imprisonment or even death. And counts 5 and 6 charged him with shooting the Hortmans and the Hoffmans using a firearm, and both of those counts also carry maximum sentences of life in prison.
Now, before I finish my remarks, I want to say a little bit about law enforcement and the manhunt that we've heard about the last two days.
Over the past 48 hours, federal, state, and local law enforcement from throughout the state of Minnesota
have worked together to carry out the largest manhunt in Minnesota history.
Now a lot has been said about law enforcement in recent weeks, but make no mistake.
The men and women of our federal, state, and local law enforcement put their lives at risk
and on the on the line to keep Minnesota safe. They worked tirelessly day and night to make
sure that the tragic events of Friday night ended without further violence or bloodshed.
We owe them all a debt of gratitude and they will forever have my respect and admiration.
I turn it over to Special Agent Alvin Woodson from the FBI.
Thanks. Thanks, Joe.
Good morning. My name is Alvin Winston, and I served as the special agent in charge
of the FBI Minneapolis Field Office, which covers the states of Minnesota,
North Dakota and South Dakota. I want to begin by
extending my deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the community
that has been shaken by this devastating act of violence. Our thoughts remain
with those who are grieving and all who have been impacted by this tragedy.
Over the weekend, the people of Minnesota and the nation have been watching closely
as this case has unfolded. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
provided a detailed update yesterday, so I won't repeat those specifics.
This was a targeted attack against individuals who answered the call
to public service. The FBI's role in moments like this
is clear. To stand alongside our partners,
bring federal resources, intelligence capabilities and reach to the effort
not just to apprehend the individual responsible but to understand
the full scope of the threat. That work continues.
This case became the largest coordinated manhunt in Minnesota's history.
We are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our law enforcement partners across the state.
No single agency could have done this alone. And because of that unified effort,
a dangerous individual was taken into custody.
Let me say this clearly. Political violence
has no place in this country. The FBI
alongside our partners will remain focused on the work ahead and on ensuring
justice is served and with that I'll hand it over to you.
Uh, thank you, uh, with those comments, and, uh, we're thankful today
to see these charges filed. Early on with our partners from the Federal Bureau
of Investigation and other federal partners from the ATF, United States Marshal Service, and others,
they provided assistance to the team of local investigators from the Brooklyn Park Police Department,
Henenburg County Sheriff's Office, and the BCA that were working on this right to begin with, along with all the other hundreds of people
that stepped up with Champlain Police Department as well in this to pursue this justice.
You might be asking because we see it a lot of times these cases, you know, go in various orders when they are,
but this is an indication that the United States Attorney's Office stands along with us in the state of Minnesota
that when somebody and an evil individual decides to move this and create fear.
In our communities and commit evil acts that we will pursue every possible charge that we can
from the state charges that you've learned about today to these federal charges that were discussed early on and I'm grateful for the leadership
of the United States Attorney's Office and the FBI for helping us move that forward so quickly in a coordinated approach.
We do that because as SAC Winston said. In situations like this,
we have individuals that step up to serve their communities. They are elected officials across our state,
and when an individual chooses to target them. For their role in representing all of us,
it's an incumbent upon all of us to put all the resources forward to hold that individual accountable to seek justice and
to make sure that we are working together to show the community across Minnesota
and the United States that political violence is never OK.
We as a country are formed on the basis that we have political discourse and that we
have debates ongoing on what we do and that we elect people day in day out to represent us.
And when somebody tries to undermine that it's important for all of us to hold that person accountable
so that we can move forward as a country and have a system in place that a representative government and that
we provide the protections for those individuals and their families moving forward and so I'm thankful for these uh charges today
uh to move this forward and the the great work of the United States Attorney's office uh partnering with us to to move forward on
this and with that they'll take some questions.
Why is it not a terrorism charges the question, you know, we brought the charges that we think are appropriate right now. Obviously these crimes are
about 48 hours old, so we have an ongoing investigation, and I can't comment as to what other charges may or may not be brought in the future.
Lou, thank you for the question. Um, will we see the death penalty it's too early to tell that is one of the options for several of the charges though.
Did Mr. Boelter have any assistance? Are you looking into whether he may have had assistance? And if he did,
what are the potential consequences for anybody who may have assisted him either before or after these tragic shootings?
Our investigation remains ongoing in several areas including whether or not he had anyone helping him, assisting him in either carrying out these attacks or fleeing from them.
I can't comment on that at this time. There's nothing in the complaint suggesting that someone did,
but the investigation is ongoing. In fact, it's just in its infancy. It's been 48 hours, most of which we are primarily focused on finding
him.s cameras in Minneapolis shortly after these crimes occurred. Do we know how he got from Brooklyn Park to Minneapolis?
Was it on foot? I, I don't know the answer to that. -- Can -- we talk for clarity about
the state charges concurrent with the federal charges? How does that all work? Does this?
No, you know, the state charges or the state, it does not nullify the state charges.
They remain in place today. He was brought into federal custody. He'll make his initial initial court appearance in federal court over in
Saint Paul at 1:30 Central time this afternoon, and my expectation based on prior cases is the federal case,
the federal charges will be litigated first. But the state charges won't necessarily go anywhere. Can you speak to why investigators believe he carried out this attack
and for how long he may have been planning these attacks? Well, it's pretty clear from the evidence that he's been planning these attacks for quite some time.
There's voluminous writings as you've seen in the reporting that were found both in his car and his house
about his planning lists of names and individuals, um, in terms of the why it's unclear.
interaction with the police. What had law enforcement been told at that point? Were they aware to be on the lookout for a dark SUV that resembled a police vehicle?
I don't know. I can turn that. I don't know if one of my colleagues here know. I know that they had heard about the shooting of Senator Hoffman and,
and being the diligent law enforcement, they were knowing that they had elected officials living in their communities.
They went on to do a wellness check. I don't know more than that. You know what I, what I can say, and as you can, I don't know the specifics of the question that's what,
uh, on that, whether it is what I will tell you is that and. law enforcement working together at that time knew of
that and so as the different jurisdictions on duty, some of them did proactive, you know, as we've heard you've heard from Chief Broly on this in Maple Grove,
for example, or in Brooklyn Park, I'm sorry, for example, they went out proactively to check on the status and the well-being and
that's how we encountered this and prevented additional attacks which we believe certainly could have occurred from occurring.
So we don't know the specifics on the new Ho as to what they were doing, but they were tracking the shooting that happened and so several of them were being.
Proactive and checking on various people that they knew resided in their city. the officers in Brooklyn or the Brooklyn Park officers that responded at them or was
he shooting into the house and they kind of like chased him into the house. My understanding is it's unclear at the moment whether or not he shot at them.
It's possible that he did. It's not clear. was a chaotic scene.
-- The officer interacted -- with him. I believe he was, although I can't say for certain.
I, I've not seen evidence of that. It's hard to say what his plan was. Obviously he went to the homes of no less than 4 elected officials.
He had a list of other elected officials, their home addresses. So to make sure that we connect the dots.
Properly, could you name the other two officials? You know, I, we can't at this time. I, I wouldn't surprise me if they publicly identify themselves,
but it's not really my place to do that if they want to protect their own privacy. Message to Minnesotans who may get a late night knock on
the door from police if something's going on in their communities. I mean, can you just speak on that?
I'm gonna let law enforcement handle that one. I don't know. Someone use your shirt, please. Good morning, uh, police Chief Mark Brewley Brooklyn Park Police Department.
Great question. Um, like we send out a message to our community when this first occurred is you always can call 911 and verify if the person at your door is a police officer.
If they are a working police officer, they will be connected to a dispatch center that can validate that. So the first thing I would do is if you're concerned about it,
um, is call 911. Um, obviously there's a lot of different uniforms and it's never wrong to do that.
Can you clarify the uh the shootings stuff because we were told, I believe.
That uh The person in custody did shoot at police at the Portman residence.
That's an important detail. Yeah, so I'll answer this again that's part of the investigation,
and I know there's been a lot that's going on, but as any time law enforcement uses deadly force, there's a walled off separate investigation to examine that.
At that time, I will tell you we still work through. We are gathering evidence when we go through this happened incredibly fast.
What I can tell you is the police officers that were there on scene. That while they were assessing the situation
that the gunfire erupted and we're still working through and reconstructing that crime scene we've
gathered all of the evidence related to that and what was said there is that this is definitely
happening very quickly and we definitely know that he began. Uh, shooting at the Hortmans as will be detailed in this information
immediately once the officers were assessing the situation, whether or not uh that the gunfire was returned at the officer or not,
we are working through that and we need to recreate the crime scene itself identify the motive and I should say I want to say like in that process
that the gunfire was erupting in such a way all around that that is partly why the the the reasonable interpretation on
some of those is where that that came from initially. The potential motive here, it has been widely reported that
the list his hit list contained names of people who are abortion rights supporters.
And also, can you please uh release the names of the two other targeted victims who were
-- to get away as -- I said with respect to the other two potential victims, I think it's up to them whether they want to publicly identify themselves.
As I said, it wouldn't surprise me if they do. They're elected officials, but that's their right, obviously they may have families and home and children and privacy interests that.
They needed to sort through so I'll let them do that um with respect to the potential motive,
let me say this there's been a lot of press coverage and speculation and discussion about manifesto
I've seen nothing. Like a Unabomber style manifesto in his writings,
he had many, many notebooks full of plans, uh, lists of names,
surveillance efforts that he took to surveil and locate the home addresses and family members'
relationships with these elected officials, but I have not seen anything involving some sort
of political screed or manifesto that would clearly. Um, identify what motivated him.
Obviously his primary motive was to go out and murder people. Now they were all elected officials,
um, they were all Democrats. Beyond that, I think it's just way too speculative for
anyone that's reviewed these materials to know, um, and to say what was motivating him in terms of ideology or specific issues.
There's a lot of there were some abortion rights supporters I believe on the list,
but again there was dozens and dozens and dozens of names on, you know, hundreds of pages of documents that were recovered
with his writings on that last night.
I'm not gonna comment on that uh at this time. -- Can -- you talk about how long this creep uh planning and surveillance went on?
Do you have any idea? Here's what I've gone on for an extensive period of time. I think it's unclear. The writings appear
to have been, uh, done at various times, um, over the course of at least months I would say,
but beyond that it's speculative. Did he, did he give any um two kind of two questions that go towards the same thing.
He appeared to be involved with some kind of a home security or professional security operation.
I wonder if you have any details into that and was he familiar to law enforcement even though he didn't appear to have any kind of serious criminal record in the state?
I, I, I've seen the press reporting on his security company. I don't know anything beyond that or any involvement that that would have in this case,
and I have no knowledge of his interactions with law enforcement prior to this. Can you at all about,
you know, his car, the light pack, the license plate, maybe a bit of a badge sniffer.
Was he obsessed with police? I have no idea that I think I skipped over the slide.
The police license plate wasn't an official looking police license plate as you can tell uh it said I believe it was like a reflective black
things that you would buy to put on like a mailbox, um, like your address on a mailbox. Was he a bit obsessed with the I have no idea.
-- There been -- reports that his wife was detained at a stop uh rest stop in Onania,
uh, and that in her car was found weapons, passports, and a lot of cash.
She was also with three children. Is that true? -- And is the wife being -- investigated?
Go ahead. I'll defer to law enforcement on that one. Yeah, I can answer the question. So when you know the the question was detained obviously
um when an individual commits these you know heinous acts and we knew he was the suspect in this case,
we're gonna want to talk to the family. Um, you know, at this point in time this is, you know, under active prosecution and so we want to be careful about what we say.
She was cooperative with us at that time. There were, um, a firearm in the vehicle,
um, at the time, um, had valid reasons for her to,
she was legally in possession, I should say that. At this time and there were other items that were recovered, but we're gonna leave that to some of the prosecution as we work this out so
we're not gonna comment on all of it as this is still continue to be part of the active investigation we need to figure out exactly what all this means in relation to this.
To be clear, there's not going to be a first appearance in district court then today and then where is he being held?
There'll be uh initial appearance in federal court over in Saint Paul, Minnesota at 1:30 central time this afternoon.
I do not anticipate there will be an appearance in state court today. Just one more question on the on the the hit list that you.
You said 45 names and we've seen more than that. It was there more than 45?
-- There there's -- lots of it. I mean, yeah, and I think it can help. I mean just there's a lot of names that we're working together right now, so the FBI,
there are some, and we've mentioned this, that there are some other names that are from out of state. They have been working through the through
our Fusion Center network across the United States and then our partners at the FBI are helping coordinate with that,
uh, in that process. The question is a good one. Part of what we're looking through the names, the numbers that you're.
Conferencing they are was names in multiple notebooks. Some of them are redundant so I don't have a
total number of of people that were in there because some of them are overlapping on multiple uh lists and
again I do want to continue to clarify this is not a list of people that was in a numerical order
in some sort of ranking these are names that are being developed as we are looking at this across multiple writings
in terms of that just to be clear about it. And what
what's in there I believe it was where is he being held? Right now I think he's in the custody of the United States Marshal Service over at the Saint Paul Federal courthouse.
Beyond that, I'll defer to the marshals on where he'll be held, assuming he's held in custody pending trial.
It it'll be an initial appearance because he's only charged by complaint. He has not yet been indicted,
so he'll, uh, have an initial appearance as all defendants do before a federal judge where he,
he'll be asked to identify himself. The court will appoint a lawyer to represent him or
he can retain one and have a lawyer represent him and then, uh, the court will ask whether or not we will move to seek his detention pending trial,
which we obviously will, and then the court could set a detention hearing and a preliminary hearing. To assess whether or not there's probable cause to charge him by complaint,
how much of that will happen actually today is unclear. We'll see at 1:30. It's at the Warren Eberger Federal Building,
and that's the only court hearings today. Correct. Thank you. For Superintendent Evans yesterday, the way that things played out yesterday when you
came up for the 5:30 or so press conference, did you know that he was close to being caught at that point,
or did it come as a surprise when you got the.
So that you know we as noted we still had belief um that is in County when we held that we did not know the information specifically that it
was there based on the overall investigative that was still our belief there but the specific information that led to his arrest at that time we were not tracking yet
so I mean and I I assume that's related to the timeline. These teams and the law enforcement teams acted very quickly when they had
a specific lead that led us to know he was in that area and so it was a relatively short period of
time where they converge and we're able to do that. You have told us is even worse.
Where does this rank in terms of the attacks that you know of, uh, across the United States and,
and what you address some of your reaction, but can you?
Look, I mean, this was a political assassination. Which is not a word we use very often
in the United States, let alone here in Minnesota, it's a, it's a chilling attack on our democracy,
on our way of life. It's only the most recent example. A violent political extremism in this country and that's a trend
that's been increasing over the in recent years and that's unfortunate. And I hope it a wake up call
to everyone. That people can disagree with you without being evil
or needing to be killed or hurt. You mentioned that multiple different aspects of this
investigation were found in multiple different notebooks. um, how many were discovered or were they all in his vehicle?
Some my understanding is some notebooks were recovered from his vehicle and others from his house, although obviously there was a lot of there was
law enforcement literally from all around the state. I couldn't begin to identify all of them representatives of many of those or some of those agencies are here,
but far more were involved, um, and so I all I can say there was many notebooks recovered from multiple locations and part of it's.
-- Makes -- sense about him going back home like what was he thinking? did he say he was trying to get back to his house?
I mean it's, it's odd I guess you could say. I, I can't speculate as to what was in his mind.
He obviously went on a murderous rampage on Friday, so I think I'm not aligned with this thought process.
Winston, you talk about is there any sort of um. Attention being paid to what kind of safety needs
to be given to politicians at this time, or is this a space where people feel like any threat that has.
OK, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna of course take these threats uh as serious as possible and throw all available resources towards these threats.
We are in lockstep with the Capitol police on a regular basis and we're continuing to have those conversations about threats towards,
uh, politicians. -- Thank you for that -- question. Maybe one more question here before we wrap up.
Chief Foley, just wanted to wrap it back to, uh, hoping you can speak to just how pivotal pivotal it is
that your officers acted proactively stopping by the Wortman's house. And
likely stopping more. Yeah, great question. Just for everybody in the room. Question is,
um, how important was it that the police officers stopped at, uh, Representative Hartman's house, which,
which really, uh, foiled this entire plan. It's incredibly important, um, that started with a sergeant who was actually off duty,
was walking out of the building and had heard that there was a shooting in another community at Senator, um, Hoffman's house,
um, being alert, uh, seeing two officers in the police department said, Hey, drive by Melissa Hartman's house and just check on the house,
would you? And that's essentially what they pulled up and found that in the driveway was the car and.
Essentially, um, the criminal act was occurring as they pulled up,
um, had they not foiled the plan. You know, essentially took his vehicle away from him which involved all his
maps, all his, uh, names, all his weaponry. um, I would be very scared what it would look like
over the next few hours had we not done that. And just to clarify, did your sergeant know about the new Hope and Maple Grove incidents or just the one?
He only knew about the one that occurred in Champlain.
So the officer, the, the other officer that. Came upon him at the 2nd house
and saw him sitting in a vehicle. Did, did she realize, like, did, did she report that and they they try to chase,
did she realize that was suspect? I don't, I don't think she did. She knew something was awry and then he left and proceeded to Brooklyn Park,
um, and carried out the next shooting, so it got lost in the chaos of the event, not lost in the chaos of events, but,
um, there was a new shooting shortly thereafter. It really is remarkable to the question earlier how.
He went to 4 houses that night and then 3 of them, or 2 of them, he encountered law enforcement at uh the 3rd and 4th
1 and the second one was home at all. It's, it's remarkable how diligent law enforcement was at 2:30,
3 o'clock, and 3:30 in the morning on a Friday night that they were responding to just to do wellness checks on our politicians.
It's a testament. The last 48 hours have been an incredible testament to the professionalism and dedication and commitment
of our federal, state, and local law enforcement. Thank you all.
