Heavily armed and dressed in tactical armor with a silicone mask hiding his face and a police-style badge,Vance Boeltermade a convincing police officer – so much so that a real police officer mistook him for a fellow cop.
The officer encountered Boelter near the home of an unnamed Minnesota public official, where the real officer was heading to conduct a safety check after news that Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife had been shot.
The real officer thought Boelter “was a law enforcement officer providing protection” for the official, according to court documents.
In reality, authorities say, Boelter was the gunman who shot the Hoffmans, critically injuring both, before driving to the public official’s home with the intent of shooting them, too.
The interaction is just one detail revealed in a 20-page affidavit filed by the FBI. Boelter faces six federal charges including murder, firearms and stalking, and could be eligible for the death penalty, after authorities say hefatally shot one Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and attempted to kill Hoffman and his wife.
The document, released on Monday, reveals the trove of evidence authorities say link Boelter to the crimes, including weapons allegedly stashed in his car and video footage from the victims’ homes.
Boelter “embarked on a planned campaign of stalking and violence, designed to inflict fear, injure, and kill members of the Minnesota state legislature and their families,” according to the affidavit.
Authorities say the attacks were highly planned. Boelter possibly spent months gathering personal information about his targets and other officials, and buying supplies for his attack, they said.
Here’s more on what we learned about how the attacks unfolded.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, Boelter went to the homes of at least four different Minnesota lawmakers, according to the complaint. He had “the intent to kill them,” Acting US Attorney Joe Thompson said Monday.
First, Boelter arrived at Hoffman’s home in Champlin, Minnesota, “dressed to impersonate a law enforcement officer” and driving a black SUV with “law-enforcement style emergency lights.”
Video footage from the state senator’s home shows Boelter, with a silicone full head mask obscuring his face, arriving and knocking at the door, shouting, “This is the police. Open the door,” according to the affidavit.
When the Hoffmans opened the door, Boelter said there had been a shooting reported inside the house and asked if they had any guns. He shined a flashlight in the couple’s face, “impairing their view of Boelter.”
Then, according to Yvette Hoffman, she realized that Boelter was wearing a mask – and they told him he wasn’t a real police officer.
Boelter shouted “this is a robbery.” John Hoffman tried to push him out of the home and Boelter then shot the couple “repeatedly.” Both victims suffered “critical” gunshot wounds but survived. The Hoffmans’ daughter called 911 around 2 a.m., according to the document.
After shooting the Hoffmans, Boelter drove about 12 miles southto the home of another Minnesota elected representative, identified only as “Public Official 1,” in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
At the second public official’s home, he followed the same playbook, saying, “This is the police. Open the door,” surveillance camera video footage shows, according to the complaint. But the public official wasn’t home – so Boelter left.
By this point, law enforcement had learned about the attack on the Hoffmans and dispatched an officer for a safety check at the home of “Public Official 2,” in New Hope, Minnesota, according to the complaint. At a Monday news conference, Thompson identified the official as a state senator.
At 2:36 a.m., police found a man “now believed to have been Boelter,” sitting in his black SUV, which “resembled a squad car,” down the street from the official’s home.
Thinking Boelter was another officer sent for a safety check, the officer tried to speak with him, but he stared straight ahead and didn’t respond.
The officer continued to Public Official 2’s residence, where “no signs of distress” were found, and by the time other officers arrived, the SUV had left.
At around 3:30 a.m., local law enforcement arrived at state Rep. Melissa Hortman’s home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, according to the affidavit.
When Brooklyn Park Police officers arrived to do a safety check on the longtime Democratic lawmaker, they saw Boelter standing near the front door.
He began firing into the house and entered the home. Officers then entered the house and found Hortman’s husband “struck by multiple gunshots” and the representative, who was “suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.” The family dog was also “gravely injured.” The Hortmans died from their injuries.
Boelter fled the scene on foot, leaving behind his black SUV, in which police found several firearms and notebooks.
A Beretta semiautomatic handgun was discovered near the Hortmans’ home, as well as a flashlight, tactical body armor vest, and a mask according to the affidavit.
Records showed that the Beretta was purchased by Boelter around 2000, according to the affidavit.
Boelter had “extensively planned his stalking, murders, and attempted murders,” reads the affidavit, including assembling the police-style disguise he used and researching his targets.
His vehicle was outfitted with “police-style lights,” which were “on and flashing” when police arrived at the Hortmans’ home.It was also affixed with a fake license plate that read “Police.”
At the suspect’s home, officers found a June 9 receipt, which showed the purchase of a flashlight, a tactical rifle case, two types of firearm ammunition, and materials thought to be used to make the fake “Police” license plate.
In one of Boelter’s notebooks, officers found the names of three websites for companies that sell realistic face masks, “similar to the one Boelter wore.”
Authorities discovered multiple notebooks, both in Boelter’s home and his vehicle, with the names of more than 45 Minnesota state and federal public officials, “mostly or all Democrats,” according to the complaint. He also included personal information about officials, like their addresses and the names of their family members.
Hortman was included in several of the lists, along with details about her home and family, according to the affidavit.
Boelter used websites that “allow users to search for the personal information of others, like home addresses and family member names,” according to the document.
Several lawmakers have reported that they were included on the lists, including Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota and US Rep. Hillary Scholten of Michigan.
Five firearms, including “semi-automatic, assault-style rifles,” were found in an SUV registered to Boelter and his wife, according to the affidavit. The vehicle was found parked outside the Hortmans’ home after the gunman fled on foot.
There was also a “large quantity of ammunition organized into loaded magazines.”
Inside the SUV, authorities also found “a medical kit containing wound treatment supplies and several eye masks of the kind that might be worn while sleeping.”
After fatally shooting the Hortmans and fleeing on Foot, Boelter returned to a north Minneapolis home where he stayed part time and then, at around 7 a.m. local time, met a person identified as “Witness 1” in the federal complaint. He agreed to buy an electronic bike and a Buick sedan from the witness.
The Buick was later discovered abandoned on the highway, close to where someone reported a sighting of Boelter on an electronic bike to law enforcement.
In the hours after the attacks took place, Boelter sent a chilling text message to family members, according to the affidavit.
“Dad went to war last night … I don’t wanna say more because I don’t wanna implicate anybody,” one text from Boelter to members of his family read, according to the affidavit.
Boelter also appeared to acknowledge that his actions were putting his family in danger.
“Words are not gonna explain how sorry I am for this situation,” he wrote. “There’s gonna be some people coming to the house armed and trigger-happy and I don’t want you guys around.”
Boelter’s wife consented to a search of their car, the affidavit says, where investigators found two handguns, passports for Boelter’s wife and their children and about $10,000 in cash.
Officers found a handwritten letter to the FBI in the Buick Boelter bought and abandoned, in which the writer identifies themself as “Dr. Vance Luther Boelter” and says they are “the shooter at large in Minnesota.”
Despite the “voluminous writings” discovered in Boelter’s home and car, no clear manifesto has been uncovered, according to Thompson, the acting US attorney. No manifesto is mentioned in the affidavit.
“In his writings, he had many, many notebooks full of plans, lists of names, surveillance efforts that he took to surveil and locate the home addresses and family members, relationships with these elected officials,” he said.
“But I have not seen anything involving some sort of political screed or manifesto that would clearly identify what motivated him,” he went on.
“Obviously, his primary motive was to go out and murder people. They were all elected officials. They were all Democrats. Beyond that, I think it’s just way too speculative for anyone that’s reviewed these materials to know and to say what was motivating him in terms of ideology or specific issues.”
A longtime friend, David Carlson, told CNN on Saturday that Boelter was a conservative who was strongly against abortion access but never mentioned particular anger with the lawmakers who were shot.