MINNEAPOLIS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A gunman posing as a police officer killed a senior Democratic state assemblywoman and her husband on Saturday in an apparent “politically motivated assassination,” and wounded a second lawmaker and his spouse, said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and law enforcement officials.
A major search backed by the FBI was underway for the suspect, who fled on foot after firing at police and abandoning a vehicle in which officers found a “manifesto” listing other legislators and officials, law enforcement officials said.
A police official said there were “people of interest that we are looking for.”
The pre-dawn Minnesota killings come amid a surge in U.S. political attacks in recent years, underscoring the dark side of the nation’s deepening political divisions. Planned anti-Trump demonstrations in Minnesota organized nationwide by the “No Kings” coalition have been cancelled following the shootings, the group said.
President Donald Trump said he was briefed on the “terrible shooting that took place in Minnesota, which appears to be a targeted attack against State Lawmakers.”
“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America. God Bless the great people of Minnesota, a truly great place!” he said in a statement.
Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman, a former assembly speaker, and her husband, Mark, were shot dead in their home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, Walz and law enforcement officials told reporters.
Her official website says they have two children.
Walz said that the gunman went to the Hortmans’ residence after shooting Senator John Hoffman and his wife multiple times in their home in the nearby town of Champlin.
They underwent surgery, Walz said, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic” that they would survive “this assassination attempt.”
“This was an act of targeted political violence,” he said. “Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. We don’t settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint.”
Law enforcement officials said the gunman attacked the Hoffmans at around 2 a.m. CDT and then drove about five miles to the Hortmans’ residence.
Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said that a “very intuitive” police sergeant who responded to the Hoffman attack asked colleagues to “proactively” check the Hortmans’ residence.
LAWMAKERS ON LIST
The two officers arriving at the Hortmans’ residence noticed what appeared to be a police vehicle parked in the driveway with its emergency lights on and an individual dressed and equipped as a police officer leaving the home, he said.
The suspect “immediately fired upon the officers, who exchanged gunfire and the suspect retreated back into the home,” Bruley continued.
The suspect, who was wearing a vest with a taser, other police equipment and a badge, is believed to have fled from the rear of the home, he said. The Hortmans and Hoffmans were on the list of names found in the suspect’s car, officials said.
Recent political violence in the U.S. has occurred in so-called battleground states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Minnesota has been reliably Democratic in recent presidential elections, but Trump and Republicans have made significant gains.
The spate of political violence includes the attempted 2020 kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, and a man who broke into Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence in April and set it on fire.
In July last year, then-candidate Trump escaped an assassination attempt by a gunman while speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump has faced criticism from some opponents over his handling of incidents involving political violence.
In one of his first moves in office earlier this year, Trump pardoned nearly everyone criminally charged with participating in the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, a move critics said signaled support for the rioters.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; additional reporting by Jason Lang and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Michelle Nichols and Diane Craft)
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