Suspected US shooter went to homes of four lawmakers during rampage

By AFP
June 17, 2025
Flowers and hand-written messages sit at a memorial outside the Minnesota State Capitol in honor of Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, after a gunman killed them, in St Paul, Minnesota, US, June 15, 2025.—Reuters
Flowers and hand-written messages sit at a memorial outside the Minnesota State Capitol in honor of Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, after a gunman killed them, in St Paul, Minnesota, US, June 15, 2025.—Reuters

WASHINGTON: The suspected killer of a Minnesota lawmaker went to four state politicians´ homes on the night that he shot dead one and wounded another, a US attorney said on Monday.

Vance Boelter, 57, faces six federal charges, including two counts of murder by firearm, punishable by life imprisonment or even the death penalty, acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson told a press conference in Minneapolis.

The murderous nighttime spree began with the shooting of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife and ended with the killing of Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband. But it had two other stops in between, Thompson said.

Clad in a black tactical vest, body armor and a silicon mask, he banged on the door of a politician´s home in the Minneapolis suburb of Maple Grove, but found no one home, Thompson said.

He then travelled to a home in the adjacent town of New Hope, but left after he was spotted by a police officer. “The details of Boelter´s crimes are truly chilling. They are the stuff of nightmares,” Thompson said. Boelter, 57, was taken into custody late on Sunday in a rural area about an hour southwest of the Minneapolis suburbs where the killings occurred, police and state officials said.