My only hope against copycats is (it seems) this guy spent a lot of money and effort to pull this off. Mainly buying the appropriate vehicle and then adding modifications to make it seem a police car.
That’s a lot of time and money I hope most would not be bothered to do. Hard to say though.
My friend lives on the golf course about 8 houses down from the shooting. He’s still sheltering in place but shared some of his backyard cam video that showed SWAT combing his tree line. The area is pretty nice and while it has some sparse dense vegetation areas there’s not a lot of places for this guy to escape to.
I heard that Hortman and maybe Hoffman were members of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party. I can imagine someone complaining that they can’t afford fertiliser (from Canada) because of the tariffs, and can’t find farm workers (because of ICE). It is completely understandable that they’d blame Democrats.
Added breaking news tag and date
Perhaps that detailed information is not being made public for various legitimate reasons, just as the state police mentioned at the news conference they will not disclose security at the state capitol and for lawmakers.
This happened overnight in a suburb of the Twin Cities. It was the suburban police who first responded. Did the police car have the name of that particular police department on it? Did it have a special PD license plate? Was the car’s interior the standard dull but heavy-duty materials? Was the police officer wearing the uniform of that particular police department? If the answer to any of those questions is “no” then who was it who showed up at the Hoffman home, and why?
There is supposed to be a “No Kings” rally at the Walker Center a couple of blocks from us. I know a bunch of our residents were going to participate and wonder if it’s now cancelled.
What a shit show.
Actually, Brooklyn Park is a city in its own right and is located northwest of MSP, about 20-30 minutes from here.
I am a staffer at the Minnesota House of Representatives, and have been for 9 years.
I saw Rep. Melissa Hortman in action for all those years, most of them as Speaker of the House. I was not in her office, but interacted with her once a month or so in our professional duties.
She was blunt. She was funny. She was self-deprecating.
She was a great leader, whom I admired for her fairness and honesty, not very common among today’s politicians. She focused on doing the work that would make the lives of every Minnesotan better. That was her overriding passion.
She will be missed.
And how. I hope they find this prick quickly, and I really hope he puts up a fight so we don’t have to waste tax dollars on him.
Minnesota does not have the death penalty. I’d rather see this guy go to court and get to ranting about his insane positions for the world to see what nutters they are.
Then drop him in a Supermax prison for the rest of his life. I think he’d find that the worst possible outcome.
(Minnesota does not have a Supermax per se but something very close…Minnesota Correctional Facility – Oak Park Heights)
For what it’s worth, the Minnesota State Senate and House were both bodies in which a party held a 1-seat advantage (prior to the shooting.) In the Senate, the Democrats were up 34-33 and in the House the Republicans were up 67-66. So it’s possible this shooter was motivated by the fact that one seat made a big difference in the hair-thin margin.
The assassin may well have thought that but a vacant seat is filled by appointment by the Minnesota governor who is Tim Walz (D). So, this should not change the balance of power. Although, any near term votes might be affected before a new appointment is made.
In general, I would prefer it if, nationwide, any vacated seat in government (any government) can only be replaced by a person of that same party (and no switching parties a day before to get appointed). If the seat is to change party let that happen at the next scheduled election by the voters. Just my $0.02
Correction: It was 67-67 in the House. Your Senate total was correct, though.
With Rep. Hortman’s death, the House is now 66-67, with Republicans having a one-person edge. The seat will remain vacant until a special election is called by the governor to fill it. That will take place in a month or so and it’s almost assured that a DFL candidate will win that election. DFL=Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, what Dems call themselves here.
Whack-a-Mole’s info is also incorrect. What he cited referred to a vacancy in the U.S. House or Senate, which the governor would fill by appointment.
This is the Minnesota Legislature, which is now adjourned until early next year. When they reconvene, Rep. Hortman’s seat will be filled by a fellow DFLer, and the House will again be 67-67.
Two people familiar with the matter identified the suspect being sought as 57-year-old Vance Boelter. The people could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Boelter, 57, was appointed by Walz in 2019 to serve a four-year stint on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, documents show.
I am going to disagree here. I would prefer he is caught and put on trial.
I think it will be very important to hear him offer his reasons for doing this. Because he was an appointee of Gov. Walz, who is a Democrat, I am already seeing posts on FB and elsewhere by MAGAts that this is not MAGA related and probably a false flag. So far nothing appears to support such rhetoric.
Do they say that wrestling a US Senator to the floor and hand cuffing him is a false flag?
State prison, not Federal prison.
Hard to call that a “false flag” when Padilla is a sitting US senator and a democrat. He wasn’t pretending to be a MAGA person and even the Trump admin and Noem cannot spin it that way. Instead they say he “lunged” towards Noem so they had to handcuff him.
Moderating:
This is off topic in this breaking news thread.