Minnesota shooting suspect identified as Vance Boelter, manhunt ongoing; dozens of Democrats on list, sources say
Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension
(BROOKLYN PARK, MN) — Authorities said they’ve identified 57-year-old Vance Luther Boelter as a suspect as they search for the gunman who allegedly shot and killed a state representative and shot and wounded a state senator in a targeted act of violence early Saturday.
Authorities said they’re still investigating if Boelter knew the victims in Saturday’s shooting: State Rep. Melissa Hortman and State Sen. John Hoffman.
“There’s certainly some overlap with some, you know, public meetings, I will say, with Sen. Hoffman and the individual,” authorities said.
Police released this photo of Boelter taken on Saturday.
Dozens of Minnesota Democrats were on a target list written by the gunman, according to law enforcement sources.
The Minnesota Democrats on the list included Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter.
Police said the list — which was retrieved from the suspect’s vehicle — also named Hortman and Hoffman. Both victims are Democrats and Hortman was formerly the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The shooter’s list of potential targets also included the names of abortion providers and pro-choice activists, several sources told ABC News. Many of the Democratic lawmakers on the list have been outspoken about pro-choice policy positions, two sources said.
Security resources have been dispatched to protect those people named on the list, authorities said. The Capitol Police said it’s “working with our federal, state and local partners.”
The shootings began around 2 a.m. Saturday when Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were both shot multiple times at their home in Champlin, Minnesota, authorities said.
“We’re cautiously optimistic they will survive this assassination attempt,” Walz said at a news conference.
After Hoffman was shot, officers headed to pro-actively check on Hortman, who lived in the nearby town of Brooklyn Park, police said.
Around 3:35 a.m., the officers found the suspect — who was dressed as a police officer — coming out of Hortman’s house, police said.
The suspect fired at the officers; gunfire was exchanged and the suspect was able to escape and flee on foot, authorities said.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were both found fatally shot at the house, police said.
The suspect’s vehicle — which looked like a police vehicle, including police lights — was in Hortman’s driveway, authorities said, and the list of potential targets was found inside the car.
A manhunt for the gunman is ongoing. Brooklyn Park is under a shelter in place order, officials said
Walz said in a statement, “We are not a country that settles our differences at gunpoint. We have demonstrated again and again in our state that it is possible to peacefully disagree, that out state is strengthened by civil public debate. We must stand united against all forms of violence.”
“We will spare no resource in bringing those responsible to justice,” he added.
Walz warned, “out of an abundance of caution,” Minnesotans should not attend any political rallies in the state until the suspect is caught.
Fliers reading “No kings,” were found in the suspect’s car, authorities said. Thousands of “No Kings Day” protests are set to be held across the U.S. on Saturday to protest Trump’s administration and to counterprogram the military parade in Washington, D.C.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Luke Barr, Mike Levine and Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Severe weather continues to impact the Midwest on Tuesday as intense storms are affecting millions of people.
The atmosphere did not recover well from Monday morning’s severe weather in the region, enabling the storm line to roll through in the later afternoon and evening as millions were impacted by intense weather events.
There were two reported tornadoes, one near Kenyon, Minnesota, where a farm suffered damage, and one near Fall Creek, Wisconsin, where structure damage was also recorded, though no injuries reported.
Other reports include a roof blown off a shed near Morristown, Minnesota, and roof damage to a large commercial warehouse near Kenyon — both of which may be related to the Kenyon but has not yet been fully confirmed.
Ten states reported storm damage from hail, wind and tornadoes, from Texas all the way to the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Elsewhere, hail up to the size of baseballs was reported in parts of Kansas, and hail larger than a baseball was reported in Oklahoma.
Severe storms are still underway on Tuesday morning in northern Texas and Oklahoma as golf ball-sized hail has already been reported early Tuesday in Oklahoma amid numerous severe thunderstorm warnings.
Meanwhile, a severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas until 10 a.m. CT.
More than 50 million Americans are in today’s storm zone stretching 14 states from Texas to New York as super cellular storms are expected to begin around 3 p.m. CT along this entire path and continue into the evening hours.
There are two areas of heightened severe potential — an enhanced risk from west Texas to southwest Oklahoma including Midland, Lubbock and Wichita Falls in Texas — and the other from Louisville, Kentucky to near Watertown, New York, encompassing Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland and Buffalo, though the severe threat is not expected to continue past midnight for the northeastern portion of this system.
However, in Texas and Oklahoma, the severe threat may linger into the early morning hours of Wednesday with the severe potential including severe wind gusts, large to very large hail and a few tornadoes.
Flash flooding could also be a major concern for the Texas and Oklahoma portion of this event.
Given the scenario expected to play out starting Tuesday afternoon and overnight into Wednesday, which includes multiple rounds of very heavy and hours-long thunderstorms over the same consecutive locations, widespread flash flooding is expected.
However, because the ground in this area is already saturated from weekend flooding, this is an even more dire forecast and is primed for numerous potentially life-threatening flash floods.
The topsoil is already full, and streams are already high, meaning the water will have nowhere to go but stay above ground, and it may flood areas that don’t usually see flooding.
On Wednesday, the moderate risk will slide just east, extending from north of Dallas to Branson, Missouri, where there is also a chance for those heavy storms to produce damaging wind, large hail and a few tornadoes.
Meanwhile, a flood watch is in effect from north Texas to central Missouri for more than 6 million Americans across five states until Thursday morning and some areas could see more than 5 inches of rain in a 12-hour period.
(ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.) — The New Mexico Republican Party headquarters was targeted in a suspected arson attack on Sunday, according to party officials.
At approximately 5:56 a.m. on Sunday, Albuquerque Fire Rescue was dispatched to the headquarters for a reported structure fire, officials said.
The flames were brought under control within five minutes of their arrival and there were no reported injuries, fire rescue said.
The structure suffered “damage to the front entryway and smoke damage throughout the building,” fire rescue said.
The words “ICE=KKK” were also spray-painted on the building, officials said.
The Republican Party of New Mexico said the incident was a “deliberate act of arson.”
“This horrific attack, fueled by hatred and intolerance, is a direct assault on our values, freedoms and our right to political expression,” party officials said in a statement on Sunday.
Party officials said this is not an isolated incident, claiming it is part of a “disturbing pattern of politically motivated violence that has plagued our country — fueled in part by the silence and implicit encouragement from progressive leaders who refuse to condemn these acts.”
Republican Party of New Mexico Chairwoman Amy Barela said those who “resort to violence to undermine our state and nation must be held accountable.”
“The Republican Party of New Mexico will not be silenced,” Barela said in a statement. “We will emerge from this stronger, more united and more determined to fight for the people of New Mexico and the future of our country.”
The Democratic Party of New Mexico said on X that it also “condemns the vandalism of the @NewMexicoGOP office as strongly as possible.”
“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our Democracy, & that peaceful discourse & organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” the party wrote. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”
New Mexico Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez added, “Political violence is unacceptable, including the arson attack on New Mexico’s GOP headquarters. The perpetrators must be held accountable. Every American should be able to freely and safely participate in our democracy.”
Leticia Muñoz, the executive director of the State Republican Party of New Mexico, said she is “thankful to first responders and law enforcement who saved our office from burning to the ground.”
“My resolve is even stronger today to continue to ‘FIGHT’ for our state,” Muñoz said in a statement.
Albuquerque Fire Rescue is working with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to investigate this incident, officials said.
(BOISE, Idaho) — The trial for the man accused of killing four Idaho college students in their beds will continue as a death penalty case, despite the fact that suspect Bryan Kohberger was recently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, an Idaho judge ruled late Thursday.
Additionally, Fourth District Judge Steven Hippler came down on the side of prosecutors — ruling that the “bulk” of what was said on a 911 call the morning after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were stabbed to death in November 2022 can be shared with the jury, as can text messages between the two surviving roommates. There will be a few exceptions, he said.
Kohberger has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the murders of the four University of Idaho students. His trial is set to start on Aug. 11 and is expected to last several months.
Autism and the death penalty
Yhe defense attempted to get the death penalty taken off the table on grounds of Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder, saying that it could make proving his innocence harder. However, in his decision denying the request, Hippler said those concerns could be addressed during jury selection.
“Intellectual impairment — a hallmark of an intellectual disability — is not present in the diagnostic criteria of ASD and no court has ever found the two to be equivalent,” the judge wrote. Kohberger, the judge noted, “has not presented any evidence of a national consensus as to whether the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for individuals with ASD.”
The judge argued that Kohberger’s lawyers tried to argue with an “apples-to-oranges comparison” of intellectual impairments that ultimately fell flat. And defense lawyers cited no capital case precedent in trying to argue there’s “growing societal sensitivity to mental disorders” and antipathy to executing those who live with them, the judge said.
“No court has ever found ASD to be categorically death-disqualifying diagnosis,” Hippler wrote.
Kohberger may have poor social skills, the judge acknowledged. In fact, Kohberger’s social difficulties, including with personal space, actually “played a role” in his Ph.D. funding being yanked, the judge said, citing a defense expert who interviewed his family, former teachers and peers.
He was never “overtly inappropriate,” but didn’t have a lot of friends — nor insight as to why that might be. He could be rather awkward and “monotone,” using formal and scripted phrases like “Objectively speaking…” and “Mind you…”
But even defense experts did not find him irretrievably impaired, the judge said. Kohberger has an IQ in the 90th percentile for his age, graduated from his master’s degree program with a 4.0 GPA, showed “some typical social behaviors” and could be polite, the judge cited from defense experts.
King Road 911 call
The “bulk” of what was said on the 911 call placed by the surviving roommates of the victims on the morning after they were stabbed to death on Nov. 13, 2022, can be used at trial, Hippler ruled.
He has also ruled in favor of admitting the surviving roommates’ texts to each other, as well as their attempts to reach the victims in those crucial hours the night the killings occurred.
A full breakdown charting out what is and what is not admissible from the call was appended to the end of the judge’s filing.
Explaining why those text messages can be admitted, the judge said that much of it describes what they were seeing, feeling and doing in the moment — and the results of those actions.
“The events are sufficiently startling to both D.M. and B.F for purposes of the excited utterance exception. D.M. and B.F. are young female college students and the self-described ‘scaredy cats of the house,'” the judge wrote. “They were awoken from sleep after a night of drinking with D.M. reporting that she heard noises and saw a masked intruder in their home. None of the other roommates were responding to their calls and texts, further indicating something was amiss.”
“It would be potentially terrifying for anyone, including these young women,” the judge continued. “To argue that they would have run out of the house or called someone else for help had they really been startled unempathetically ignores these circumstances and the trauma and confusion they were evidently experiencing, which likely offset logical thought.”
Among the few items needing redaction is an instance when the person on the phone to the 911 dispatcher describes how one of the roommates had relayed that Xana was “passed out and she was drunk last night and she’s not waking up” and that they “saw some man in their house last night.”
The judge said that person on the call did not have firsthand knowledge and was only telling the dispatcher what they had been told; therefore, that could not be played for the jury.
He also ruled that one of the surviving roommate’s attempts to start a timeline of those early morning hours should be redacted, since it’s not an in-the-moment remark, having come after “several hours to reflect on what she had seen and experienced at 4:00 a.m.”
The latest court filings also provide new information about the moments the surviving roommates came upon the victims, such as when one of them called a friend “to come over and check the house because she was scared.”
The friend and her boyfriend came over and met the two survivors “at the bottom floor of the house,” and together they “started to walk up the stairs to the second floor.”
“When they reached the second floor, H.J. went to the kitchen to grab a kitchen knife. When he came backout, D.M. ‘saw Xana again for a split second. And I just started bawling because I thought she had just like – I don’t even know. I thought maybe she was still just drunk and all asleep on the floor,'” the judge quoted from grand jury transcripts.
“H.J. told D.M. and B.F. to ‘get out,'” the judge quoted. “E.A., who had started up the stairs, also turned around after H.J. instructed her not to come any further. They both went outside.”
“Shortly afterwards, H.J. exited the house and told them to call 911. He was pale white and mentioned something about someone being unconscious,” the judge continued.
Expert witnesses
Siding with prosecutors, the judge ruled Thursday that expert witnesses on a range of fronts will be able to testify.
Those include an FBI special agent who helped analyze Kohberger’s cellphone records — something his lawyers have repeatedly pushed back on.
Defense lawyers said Kohberger was driving around alone on the night the killings occurred, and they wanted to call to the stand a cellphone data expert to back that up. The special agent is expected to counter that data expert’s argument.
Experts also include a forensic accountant for the FBI who can talk about how Kohberger spent his money — including how he only made ATM withdrawals around and after the killings and totally stopped using his debit card just a couple days before the killings — whereas prior, debit card use had been a regular habit.
They also include a supervisor at Amazon.com, expected to speak specifically to Kohberger’s click history and other online shopping data. Prosecutors have alleged that eight months before the killings, Kohberger bought a knife and sheath that could have been the murder weapon.
DNA matching Kohberger’s was found on a KA-BAR knife sheath by one of the victim’s bodies, prosecutors have said — a linchpin in an otherwise largely circumstantial case. No murder weapon has been found.
Prosecutors can also call a detective who can testify that stabbing to death all four students could have been achieved in mere minutes — and that just one person would have needed no help.
“Depending on the suspect’s pace and route, he could have carried out the crimes in approximately two to four minutes,” the judge said in his ruling.
The judge acknowledged that the detective could potentially be called as a rebuttal witness if the defense tries to argue, as they have suggested, that Kohberger’s ASD deficits make it “not possible” for him to have “acted with the speed and coordination required to commit the crimes in the time frame alleged.”
