Who is Vance Boelter
Vance Luther Boelter is a 57 year old who is suspected to have fatally shot Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark at their home in Brooklyn Park. He also shot and wounded Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette at their home in Champlin. Both the lawmakers were members of the Democratic Party, representing the northwest corner of the Twin Cities.
Early on Saturday, Vance disguised himself as a police officer while wearing a latex’Walter-White’ realistic mask and conducted a shooting in two locations, a few miles from each other in Champlin and Brooklyn Park. He shot Hoffman and his wife at their house in Champlin around 2 a.m.
After Hoffman was shot, officer were heading to pro-actively check on Hortman when they encountered the suspect at Hortman’s Brooklyn Park home around 3:35 a.m. They found him coming out of Hortman’s house and was dressed as a police officer – wearing a vest and a badge, and with a Taser and other equipment . He fired at the police and was able to escape on foot. The officers seized his vehicle which looked like a police vehicle, including police lights in Hortman’s driveway.
He has been captured in a field near Faxon Township in Sibley County after law enforcement tracked him into the woods.
Background
Boelter was raised in the small Minnesota town of Sleepy Eye. He studied at a Bible college in Dallas and holds both a master’s degree in management and a doctorate in Leadership from Cardinal Stritch University. There is no public information available about his parents and siblings.
Vance Boelter Wife
Vance is married to Jennifer Lynee Boelter and they have five children three daughters Faith, Hope and Grace and two sons.. It is not clear whether the two were still together as Boetler lived at a residence in Camden, Minnesota. Jenny is the President and CEO of Praetorian Guard Security Services.
On Saturday, she was in a vehicle that was pulled over at a traffic stop in the Onamia area in Mille Lacs County by law enforcement. She was with several other relatives.
Career
Vance Boelter works as the director of security patrols at Praetorian Guard Security Services. According to their website, he “has been ivolved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Afric, North America and the Middle East, including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. He brings a great security aspect forged by both many on the ground experiences combined with training by both private security firms and by people in the U.S. Military. He has worked for the largest U.S. oil refining company, the world’s largest food company based in Switzerland and the world’s largest convenience retailer based in Japan.”
The firm offers only armed security guards and uses Ford Explorer S.U.V.s, “the same make and model of vehicles that many police departments use.” On Saturday afternoon after the shooting, the police towed a Ford Explorer from outside Representative Hortman’s home.
According to his LinkedIn account, he was the CEO of Red Lion Group in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the last three years. He was however open to work in other leadership positions outdide of the Food Industry. He held other positions over the years including the General Manager for 7-Eleven in Minneapolis; General Manager for Greencore in Shakopee, MN; Del Monte Production System Manager at Del Monte Foods.
He had taken a mortuary science program, an online program in 2023 and 2024 at Des Moines Area Community College, in Iowa. According to a video, he alleged to work six days a week for two funeral homes in the Minneapolis area. At one, he said, he sometimes helped to remove bodies from crime scenes and would work with police officers and death investigators.
Vance Luther Boelter Political Affiliation
Vance is a registered Republican who voted according to his friend voted for Donald Trump and was against abortion, considering it murder.. He appears to have far-right ideologies. In his car, the police found a list with 70 targets including Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates. According to news outlets some of the names on the list includes Mellissa Hortman, John Hoffman, Governor Tim Walz, US Senator Tina Smith, US Representative Ilhan Omar. In addition, there were flyers associated with the anti-Trump ‘No King’ movement.
He worked with Sen. John A. Hoffman
Vance served on the Workforce Development Board with Sen. John A. Hoffman. He was appointed to the board in 2016 by Mark Dayton, a former Democrat governor. More recently, he was appointed by Gov. Tim Walz, also a Democrat. The goal of the board is to improve business development in the state. In 2022, Boelter amd Sen. Hoffman attended a virtual meeting together for a discussion about the job market in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic according to minutes from the meeting.
Boelter is a Christian/ Anti- Gay/ Anti-Trans
Vance is a Christian. According to I.R.S. tax forms, together with his wife he led a Christian nonprofit called Revoformation Ministries. According to the group’s website, he became an ordained minister in 1993 and traveled previously to violent areas “in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and had sought out militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”
There is a video of him while in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he delivered several sermons. In one of the sermons, he claimed to have given his life to Jesus as a teenager. In the same sermon, he criticized gay and transgender people.
“There’s people, especially in America, they don’t know what sex they are. They don’t know their sexual orientation, they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.”
Roommate
Boelter had rented a room in the same home as his bestfriend David Carlson where the police executed a search warrant for him. He stayed there several days a week. According to Carlson, he had received a text message from Boelter on Saturday morning in which he said he might be dead soon.
According to The NYT, Boelter had given Carlson four months’ worth of advance rent payments — which was about $220 a month — for a small room in the shared house on Friday. He had said he needed some rest and so Carlson left him alone. According to Carlson, Boelter avoided talking about politics and had been experiencing financial and mental health challenges.
Vance Boelter Capture
Vance has been captured after a two day manhunt and is being held in a police custody . He was spotted near a residence in Green Isle and began running down a driveway into the woods. At one point he was tucked in the fetal positionand then began army crawling until he eventually stood up to surrender.
He had been tracked into the woods. When a drone flew overhead he put his hands in the air and walked toward officers in a SWAT vehicle.