The man suspected of shooting two Minnesota legislators and their spouses on 14 June while dressed as a cop has finally been caught. Minnesota cops spent much of the weekend conducting a full-scale manhunt for Vance Boelter, who was arrested in a rural area of Sibley County, southwest of Minneapolis.
Boelter, 57, is accused of shooting Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, as well as state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. The Hortmans are dead, and the Hoffmans are in the hospital with serious injuries.
FACT: Vance Boelter was a Trump voter.
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) June 15, 2025
FACT: Right-wing accounts spent the entire day trying to gaslight the public into believing he was a Democrat.
FACT: In the end, it doesn’t really matter who he voted for—dangerous individuals exist across every race, gender, and political… pic.twitter.com/rpQjBDRKJT
As is now always the case with modern mass shootings, there was instant social media obsession with the killer’s political beliefs. On paper, this shouldn’t have been too hard to figure out: Boelter targeted Democrat politicians, is an evangelical Christian, and there’s video of him angrily making a homophobic speech.
But MAGA quickly seized on the fact that Boelter was appointed to the “Governor’s Workforce Development Board” by Democrats, first by Mark Dayton in 2016 and then by Tim Walz in 2019. Conspiracy theorists have seized on this fact to say he’s secretly a Democrat, slightly overlooking that this was a 60-person bipartisan advisory board and Boelter was in no way ever “working for ” Walz (or even met him).
“He was a Trump supporter”
Footage of the Minnesota assassin Vance Luther Boelter, a life long registered republican and "Christian" nationalist incel that hated women. He's 100% MAGA. https://t.co/OmT8oZy5u2 pic.twitter.com/sREzTNYomV
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) June 15, 2025
Anyhow, whatever conspiracy theories were developing have been blown out of the water by Boulter’s roommate and lifelong friend, David Carlson, who told the press: “He was a Trump supporter. He voted for Trump. He liked Trump.”
Then came Boulter’s “manifesto” discovered inside his car, which named future targets including Amy Klobuchar, Ilhan Omar, and Walz himself. Several other prominent state Democrats were also named, along with multiple abortion providers in the state.
The MAGA crowd is white washing Vance Boelter, claiming him to be a Democrat.
— David (@ahzoov) June 15, 2025
He's a strong Trump supporter” with conservative views, including anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ stances. He's a white supremacist. He's a murderer. pic.twitter.com/J6OfPbmePe
All of which means you don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to conclude that Boelter is not some furious Democrat liberal but exactly what he seems to be: yet another MAGA domestic terrorist. I mean, if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck – it’s probably a highly-armed middle-aged white guy who’s spent too much time stewing on Facebook.
Late last night, Klobuchar shared a statement from Yvette Hoffman expressing appreciation for the outpouring of public support: “John is enduring many surgeries right now and is closer every hour to being out of the woods. He took 9 bullet hits. I took 8 and we are both incredibly lucky to be alive. We are gutted and devastated by the loss of Melissa and Mark.”
It remains to be seen what will happen to Boulter, though it seems unlikely he’ll ever be a free man again. Then again, if his MAGA bona fides are so conclusive, maybe Trump will give him a presidential pardon and this maniac can be appointed to high political office.
