New Hope, Minnesota, June 21 (Reuters) – Vancebolter’s disguise was not perfect. The silicone mask was a bit loose, and the license plate on his SUV simply read “police” in black letters. But it was enough for a suburban street that was not lit in the middle of the night.
At 2:36am on Saturday, 30 minutes after authorities shot and killed Minnesota Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, he paused behind the wheels of an SUV near the home of another Senator Ann Rest in New Hope town.
The SUV stocks weapons, such as the AK-47 assault rifle, touting the local anti-trump rally scheduled for Saturday, and a list of names of people who appear to be targeting it. The senator was among the Volter who attempted to kill him on June 14th, the prosecutor would later say.
Another police car – this is an actual police car and approached, as Boerter sat in an SUV under the street from his Rest house.
A female officer from the New Hope Police Station came out to confirm her rest after hearing about the shooting of Hoffman. Looking at the SUV with flashlights and police-style decals, she believed the men inside were fellow officers.
However, when she tried to talk to him – one officer greets another officer – she didn’t get a response. Instead, a man inside the SUV with police markings stared ahead. The new Hope Officer decided to drive and go ahead and check for rest.
Rest would later say that the New Hope Officer’s initiative probably saved her life, an opinion shared by New Hope Police Chief Timothy Hoyt.
“With limited information, she went there herself to check the welfare of our senator,” Whitt told Reuters. “She did the right thing.”
New Hope’s brief interaction highlighted the carefully planned nature of Boerter’s pre-dawn rampage and how police impersonators, including body armor, badges and tactical vests, confused his initial attempt to stop him.
After meeting a New Hope Officer, Belter, 57, left the scene and moved to his next target. The police chase him for another 43 hours. Along the way, they draw in phalanxes of state and federal agencies, ranked as the biggest manhunt in Minnesota history, adding to the sense of national disorientation, already protests over immigration, forced removal of US senators from press conferences, and forced removal from Washington’s rare military parades.
Federal prosecutors say they may seek the death penalty of Boerter, who was charged with killing two people and attempting to kill two others, what Gov. Tim Waltz calls a “political motivation” attack.
Prosecutors said they are still investigating their motivations and whether others are involved. Belter has not yet entered the plea. Manny Atwal, the public defense attorney representing Boerter, said he declined to comment, saying he was reviewing the case.
The Manhunt reconstruction is based on court documents, statements from law enforcement officials and interviews with friends of Bolter, local police officers, lawmakers and residents of affected areas.
Criminal justice experts say the event unfolded like something from a TV crime drama, but it had similarities with previous shootings. Former FBI crime craftsman James Fitzgerald said that if Bolter studied mass shootings in Canada in 2020, he wouldn’t be surprised when a gunman pretending to be a police officer killed 22 people in Nova Scotia.
“These people are constantly doing research in advance. We want to see how other killers were successful and how they were caught,” said Fitzgerald, who helped the FBI capture “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski in 1996.
Hoffman shooting
The violence began at Hoffman’s brick level home in Shamplin, a lush middle-class suburb of Minneapolis. The emergency lights flashed, and Boerter was pulled into the driveway just after 2am and knocked on the door.
“This is police. Please open the door,” cried Belter repeatedly, according to the FBI affidavit.
Senator Hoffman and his wife Yvette quickly decided that Bolter was not a real police officer. Belter shot Senator Hoffmann nine times, then fired at Yvette, keeping her daughter from being hit.
When Boerter escaped the scene, her daughter was called 911.
Hoffmans was on the target list of more than 45 federally and state elected officials in Minnesota.
According to his part-time roommate David Carlson, Belter voted for President Donald Trump, a Christian and did not like abortion. Carlson said Belter doesn’t seem angry about politics.
Thompson said Boerter “creeped his victims like prey,” but the writings he left behind did not point to a consistent motivation. “His crime is like a nightmare,” he said.
“His crime is like a nightmare,” Thompson said.
After Hoffman, the next address connected to Boerter’s GPS system was a lawmaker about nine miles away in the outskirts of Minneapolis, Maple Grove.
Surveillance cameras from the home of state Sen. Christine Berner rang the doorbell at 2:24 a.m. “Open the door, this is the police. We have a warrant,” the FBI affidavit says.
Banner and her family were not at home.
From there, Belter moved to New Hope and into a close encounter with the policeman whom he had dispatched to Rest’s house. He was then not seen by police again until he arrived at the residence of Melissa Hortman, a top Democrat at the state capitol building in Brooklyn Park.
Feeling that Hortman could be the target, Brooklyn Park police officers had decided to check her out. When they arrived at 3:30am, they saw a black Ford Explorer outside her house, and its police-style lights flashed. Belter was near the main entrance.
When Bolter saw the officers leaving their squad car, he fired fire at them. He then ran through the front door of the house, where he killed Melissa and her husband, Mark Hortman.
When Boerter left Hortman’s house, he abandoned the fake police SUV. Inside the vehicle, police advertised a 9mm handgun, three AK-47 assault rifles and a flyer promoted the local anti-Trump “No Kings” rally, and found a notebook with the names of people believed to be targets, according to court documents.
From that point on, Belter was running. Police say he visited his part-time residence in North Minneapolis, but little has been revealed about his move. He also sent a text. For one, in a group chat with his family, Belter wrote that he “got to the war last night.” In another, for his best friend, Boltter says that he might be dead soon.
Police also know that by the early hours of Saturday, Volter had met a man at a bus stop in Minneapolis. The two drove to the bank and Boerter withdraws $2,200 from his account. Security camera shows a bolter wearing a cowboy hat.
However, it took until 10am on Sunday for authorities to close. Police searching an area near Boerter’s family home in a rural community in Green Isle, discovered an abandoned Buick.
Law enforcement scrambled to set up boundaries surrounding the area, SWAT teams and search dogs were deployed, and drones were placed in the air.
However, it was a resident trail camera, which took images of Boerter around 7pm, providing final clues to help officers narrow down their search.
Two hours later, the pursuit ended with Bolter roaming with the police. He was armed, but surrendered without a fight.
(Reporting by Nathan Lane and Tom Polansek of Minneapolis Edited by Joseph Axe of New York, Paul Thomasch and Nick Zieminsky)
