Tim Sullivan and Hannah Fingerhut
Minneapolis: A Minnesota man, who pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing a top Democratic politician and her husband, admitted he spent months identifying elected officials to target, and stalking them before driving to their homes in the middle of the night dressed as a police officer, intending to kill them.
The attacks by Vance Boelter in Minneapolis last summer sparked the largest police search in state history and reverberated across the United States, with elected officials fearing that escalating threats and polarisation could lead to more violence.
Boelter, 58, pleaded guilty so that federal prosecutors would not seek the death penalty; instead, he agreed to serve two consecutive life sentences, plus 40 years.
Boelter, disguised in a tactical uniform and realistic mask, parked his police-style SUV with emergency flashing lights in the driveway of Melissa Hortman, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, about 3.30am on June 14, 2025.
He rang the doorbell, shouting: “Police, welfare check,” according to a plea agreement made public on Thursday. Mark Hortman, her husband, answered the door.
Hortman told Boelter that his wife was also in the home, and Boelter said he’d need to see her before he could leave, according to the plea agreement.
When Mark Hortman asked, Boelter gave him a fake name and badge number, and when Hortman followed up about his jurisdiction, Boelter hesitated before naming a different Minneapolis suburb, the agreement states.
Boelter then immediately took out his gun and shot Hortman multiple times, according to the agreement.
Boelter then “rushed forward through the front door into the home” and shot Melissa Hortman repeatedly “as she attempted to flee upstairs”, according to the plea agreement. Both Melissa and Mark Hortman were killed.
Boelter had already been to the home of state senator John Hoffman that night, shooting and critically injuring him and his wife, Yvette, while their daughter was nearby.
There were brief sobs from the courtroom gallery, where family members of the Hortmans sat alongside John and Yvette Hoffman as the attacks were described in detail on Thursday.
Again and again, Boelter simply said “yes,” as his attorney questioned him about his actions, including whether he pressed a pistol to Melissa Hortman’s head and fired.
US Attorney Daniel Rosen told reporters after the hearing that the death penalty was only taken off the table after Boelter agreed to the longest possible prison sentence for the six federal charges.
“Political violence is a scourge plaguing America,” Rosen said. “Those that would commit political violence at any level should take heed: the Justice Department will seek and obtain the longest prison terms available for your crimes.”
A statement posted on John Hoffman’s Facebook page said there is no justice for the Hortmans and “there is not justice when our family and our state will never truly heal. While the legal process may provide accountability, true healing requires something more from all of us.”
The statement called on Minnesotans and Americans to “treat people with respect, to stop de-humanising each other, and to stop dividing our country with hate and rhetoric”.
Boelter also faces state charges, including two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder, as well as charges of impersonating a police officer and animal cruelty. The Hortman family’s golden retriever was gravely injured in the shootings and had to be euthanised.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said on Thursday that the federal plea agreement did not affect the state’s case, which had been on hold pending the resolution of the federal case.
Boelter also stopped outside the homes of two other politicians in the Minneapolis suburbs that night. At one, he knocked, but no one answered. At the other, he was apparently frightened away when a police officer, believing he was a fellow officer, approached him as he sat in his vehicle.
Boelter, wearing his orange jail sweatshirt and sweatpants as he sat in the courtroom between two of his attorneys, listened closely as US District Judge John Tunheim talked through each of the six charges and their maximum sentences. Tunheim accepted the guilty pleas and said he would set a date for sentencing soon.
Boelter was captured near his home in rural Green Isle, about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis, the day after the shootings, which prosecutors have said were politically motivated but which remain in many ways unexplained.
“Dad went to war last night,” Boelter messaged his family that morning. “Words are not going to explain how sorry I am.”
Boelter, an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views who had travelled to the Congo as a preacher and missionary, spent much of his life in the food service industry. He had been struggling to earn a living before the shootings, after the failure of a security company he had founded.
John Hoffman said in a lawsuit filed against Boelter in April that his left arm and hand would probably never recover fully and that he also had permanent injuries to his digestive and urinary systems.
Yvette Hoffman was left with permanent physical weakness, the lawsuit said, while their adult daughter, Hope Hoffman, who was there and called 911 but was not shot, suffered severe psychological trauma.
AP
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