Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman lies in state as shooting suspect appears in court
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman laid in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda on Friday while the man charged with killing her and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, made a brief court appearance in a suicide prevention suit.
Hortman, a Democrat, is the first woman and one of fewer than 20 Minnesotans accorded the honor. She laid in state with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert. Her husband was also killed in the June 14 attack, and Gilbert was seriously wounded and had to be euthanized. It was the first time a couple has laid in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog.
The Hortmans' caskets and the dog's urn were arranged in the center of the rotunda, under the Capitol dome, with law enforcement officers keeping watch on either side.
The Capitol was open for the public to pay their respects from noon to 5 p.m. Friday. House TV was livestreaming the viewing. A private funeral is set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The service will be livestreamed on the Department of Public Safety's YouTube channel.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will fly to Minnesota for the funeral but won't have a speaking role, according to her personal office. Harris expressed her condolences this past week to Hortman's adult children, and spoke with Gov. Tim Walz, her 2024 running mate, who extended an invitation on behalf of the Hortman family, her office said.
The man accused of killing the Hortmans and wounding another Democratic lawmaker and his wife made a short court appearance Friday to face charges for what the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called 'a political assassination.' Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, surrendered near his home the night of June 15 after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history.
An unshaven Boelter was brought in wearing just a green padded suicide prevention suit and orange slippers. Federal defender Manny Atwal asked Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko to continue the hearing until next Thursday. She said Boelter has been sleep deprived while on suicide watch in the Sherburne County Jail, and that it has been difficult to communicate with him as a result.
'Your honor, I haven't really slept in about 12 to 14 days,' Boelter told the judge. And he denied being suicidal. 'I've never been suicidal and I am not suicidal now.'
Atwal told the court that Boelter had been in what's known as a 'Gumby suit,' without undergarments, ever since his transfer to the jail after his first court appearance on June 16. She said the lights are on in his area 24 hours a day, doors slam frequently, the inmate in the next cell spreads feces on the walls, and the smell drifts to Boelter's cell.
The attorney said transferring him to segregation instead, and giving him a normal jail uniform, would let him get some sleep, restore some dignity, and let him communicate better. The judge agreed.
Prosecutors did not object to the delay and said they also had concerns about the jail conditions.
The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson, told reporters afterward that he did not think Boelter had attempted to kill himself.
Boelter did not enter a plea. Prosecutors need to secure a grand jury indictment first, before his arraignment, which is when a plea is normally entered.
According to the federal complaint, police video shows Boelter outside the Hortmans' home and captures the sound of gunfire. And it says security video shows Boelter approaching the front doors of two other lawmakers' homes dressed as a police officer.
His lawyers have declined to comment on the charges, which could carry the federal death penalty. Thompson said last week that no decision has been made. Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911. The Death Penalty Information Center says a federal death penalty case hasn't been prosecuted in Minnesota in the modern era, as best as it can tell.
Boelter also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in state court that could carry life without parole, assuming that county prosecutors get their own indictment for first-degree murder. But federal authorities intend to use their power to try Boelter first.
Authorities say Boelter shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin before shooting and killing the Hortmans in their home in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, a few miles away.
Federal prosecutors allege Boelter also stopped at the homes of two other Democratic lawmakers. Prosecutors also say he listed dozens of other Democrats as potential targets, including officials in other states. Friends described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views. But prosecutors have declined so far to speculate on a motive.
Boelter's wife, Jenny, issued a statement through her own lawyers Thursday saying she and her children are 'absolutely shocked, heartbroken and completely blindsided,' and expressing sympathy for the Hortman and Hoffman families. She is not in custody and has not been charged.
'This violence does not align at all with our beliefs as a family,' her statement said. 'It is a betrayal of everything we hold true as tenets of our Christian faith. We are appalled and horrified by what occurred and our hearts are incredibly heavy for the victims of this unfathomable tragedy.'
An FBI agent's affidavit described the Boelters as 'preppers,' people who prepare for major or catastrophic incidents. Investigators seized 48 guns from his home, according to search warrant documents.
While the FBI agent's affidavit said law enforcement stopped Boelter's wife as she traveled with her four children north of the Twin Cities in Onamia on the day of the shootings, she said in her statement that she was not pulled over. She said that after she got a call from authorities, she immediately drove to meet them at a nearby gas station and has fully cooperated with investigators.
'We thank law enforcement for apprehending Vance and protecting others from further harm,' she said.
Karnowski writes for the Associated Press.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
21 minutes ago
- New York Post
Who'll end Christian slaughter, grad schools will survive loan caps and other commentary
Foreign desk: Who'll End Christian Slaughter? 'On Friday June 13, over 500 Christians' were murdered by Islamic terrorists in Nigeria, reports The Free Press' Madeleine Kearns. 'The jihadists broke into homes and shelters, murdering people with machetes,' then 'doused their victims' bodies and homes in petrol and set them ablaze.' And, 'though exceptional in scale and barbarity,' it's just 'part of a pattern of persecution that Christians in Nigeria have come to expect.' Consider: 'Since 2009, Islamists' across Nigeria 'have destroyed over 18,000 churches,' 'murdered over 50,000 Christians' and displaced 'a further 5 million Christians.' Yet Western governments and media 'have turned away from the issue.' Will anyone move to stop the carnage? Libertarian: Grad Schools Will Survive Loan Caps Advertisement A provision in the Republican Big Beautiful Bill 'may make considerable inroads to correcting a decades-long student loan policy that has driven expensive programs and large debt burdens for students,' cheers Reason's Emma Camp. The House bill 'eliminates the Graduate PLUS loan program, which allows graduate students to borrow an unlimited sum of money from the government,' instead capping grad-student borrowing at $100,000, 'with a $150,000 limit for professional programs, and a lifetime cap of $200,000 for all students.' These caps could 'force colleges to lower their prices once their students no longer have access to an infinite pile of government money.' Indeed, If we want more affordable medical schools, 'the first step should involve actually incentivizing medical schools to stop overcharging students.' Conservative: Dems' NYC-led Coastal Elitism 'One interesting aspect of the rise of' socialist Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani 'is what it says about New York City's dominance of national Democratic politics at this moment,' muses the Washington Examiner's Byron York. 'The New York contingent essentially is the leadership of the Democratic Party today,' since congressional leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer as well as stars Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders are all current or former New Yorkers. 'After the 2024 election, Democratic pollster Mark Penn wrote that Trump was elected by 'Americans who feel abandoned by the coastal elites and a Democratic Party that moved too far from mainstream America.'' 'There are probably a lot of things Democrats might do to broaden their appeal beyond the coastal areas, but' elevating Mamdani 'is definitely not one of them.' Advertisement Antisemitism beat: 'Kosherizing' Jew-Haters Just before New York's mayoral primary, late-night host Stephen Colbert's guests were Zohran Mamdani and City comptroller Brad Lander, notes Commentary's Seth Mandel. 'All three were there' to 'help elect Zohran Mamdani mayor.' Mamdani — 'the poster child for progressive anti-Zionism's conquest of the mainstream Democratic Party' — had defended the phrase 'globalize the intifada,' which calls for violence against Jews, and 'Colbert can be effective at shielding left-wing anti-Semites from criticism.' Then again, the TV host doesn't 'hold a candle in that department to Brad Lander': Indeed, the comptroller's 'alliance with Mamdani' is the 'culmination of years of Lander's efforts to kosherize anti-Semitism.' He's part of the story of 'the collapse of New York's Jewish-political establishment.' Sen. Chuck Schumer, who kissed 'Mamdani's ring,' is 'the capstone of this project.' From the right: Lefties' Chronic Mental Misery Advertisement Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) 'said last week that Donald Trump supporters are mentally ill,' but 'it's her side that is not well,' snarks the Issues & Insights editorial board. 'Nine in 10 conservatives self-report their mental health to be excellent (51%)' versus only 20% of liberals. Meanwhile, 'only 19% of conservatives say their mental health is poor, while 45% of liberals say they have poor mental health.' 'This is not a new development related to Trump returning to the White House. A decade ago, University of Toronto researchers similarly 'found that conservatives are more emotionally stable than liberals.' 'Democrats, progressives, socialists, anti-capitalists, and the rest who reside under the leftist umbrella are unhappy, and they want everyone else to be just as miserable as they are.' — Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
San Francisco Chronicle
43 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
University of Virginia president, pressured over DEI, resigns rather than 'fight federal government'
WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of the University of Virginia, facing heavy pressure from conservative critics and the Trump administration over the school's diversity, equity and inclusion practices, announced Friday that he was resigning rather than 'fight the federal government.' The departure of James Ryan, who had led the school since 2018, represents a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration's effort to reshape higher education. Doing it at a public university marks a new frontier in a campaign that has almost exclusively targeted Ivy League schools. It also widens the rationale behind the government's aggressive tactics, focusing on DEI rather than alleged tolerance of antisemitism. Ryan had faced conservative criticism that he failed to heed federal orders to eliminate DEI policies, and his removal was pushed for by the Justice Department as it investigated the school, according to a person who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press. Ryan referenced the Trump administration pressure in a statement to the university community Friday in which he said he had submitted his resignation with a 'very heavy heart.' 'To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this University,' he said. 'But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my job.' Ryan had already decided that next year would be his last, he said, and remaining in his position until then would be 'knowingly and willingly sacrificing this community.' The New York Times first reported on the resignation and the Justice Department's insistence on it. The Justice Department declined to comment Friday. Ryan's removal is another example of the Trump administration using 'thuggery instead of rational discourse,' said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents university presidents. 'This is a dark day for the University of Virginia, a dark day for higher education, and it promises more of the same,' Mitchell said. 'It's clear the administration is not done and will use every tool that it can make or invent to exert its will over higher education.' Virginia's Democratic senators react In a joint statement, Virginia's Democratic senators said it was outrageous that the Trump administration would demand Ryan's resignation over ''culture war' traps.' 'This is a mistake that hurts Virginia's future,' Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine said. After campaigning on a promise to end 'wokeness' in education, Trump signed a January action ordering the elimination of DEI programs and 'radical indoctrination' across the nation's schools and universities. The Education Department has opened investigations into dozens of colleges, arguing that diversity initiatives discriminate against white and Asian American students. The response from schools has been scattered. Some have closed DEI offices, ended diversity scholarships and no longer require diversity statements as part of the hiring process. Some others have rebranded DEI work under other names, while some have held firm on diversity policies. The University of Virginia became a flashpoint after conservative critics accused it of simply renaming its DEI initiatives. The school's governing body voted to shutter the DEI office in March and end diversity policies in admissions, hiring, financial aid and other areas. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin celebrated the action, declaring that 'DEI is done at the University of Virginia.' Among those drawing attention to the Charlottesville campus was America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller. In a May letter to the Justice Department, the group said the university failed to dismantle DEI programs and chose to 'rename, repackage, and redeploy the same unlawful infrastructure under a lexicon of euphemisms.' The group directly took aim at Ryan, noting that he joined hundreds of other college presidents in signing a public statement condemning the 'overreach and political interference' of the Trump administration. On Friday, the group said it will continue to use every available tool to root out what it has called discriminatory systems. 'This week's developments make clear: public universities that accept federal funds do not have a license to violate the Constitution,' Megan Redshaw, an attorney at the group, said in a statement. 'They do not get to impose ideological loyalty tests, enforce race and sex-based preferences, or defy lawful executive authority." Ryan has been leading the school since 2018 Ryan was hired to lead the University of Virginia in 2018 and previously served as the dean of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Earlier in his career he spent more than a decade as a law professor at the University of Virginia. A biography on Harvard's website credits Ryan with increasing the 'size, strength and diversity' of the faculty, adding that building a diverse community was a priority. Robert D. Hardie, leader of the University of Virginia's governing board, said he accepted Ryan's resignation with 'profound sadness,' adding that the university 'has forever been changed for the better as a result of Jim's exceptional leadership.' Until now, the White House had directed most of its attention at Harvard University and other elite institutions that Trump sees as bastions of liberalism. Harvard has lost more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants amid its battle with the government, which has also attempted to block the school from hosting foreign students and threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status. Harvard and its $53 billion endowment are uniquely positioned to weather the government's financial pressure. Public universities, however, are far more dependent on taxpayer money and could be more vulnerable. The University of Virginia's $10 billion endowment is among the largest for public universities, while the vast majority have far less. ___
Atlantic
an hour ago
- Atlantic
The Tea Party Is Back (Maybe)
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Signs were all around, but the clinching evidence that the Tea Party is back came this week in New Hampshire, where the Republican Scott Brown announced that he'd be running for U.S. Senate. Fifteen years ago, in January 2010, Brown, a state senator in Massachusetts, defeated the Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late liberal icon Ted Kennedy. Brown's victory was a landmark for conservative opposition to Barack Obama's administration, and in particular to his attempt to overhaul health insurance. Protests in the streets and angry crowds at legislators' town-hall meetings had given a taste of the brewing voter anger, but Democratic leaders dismissed demonstrators as rabble-rousers or astroturfers. Brown's victory in deep-blue Massachusetts proved that the Tea Party was a real force in politics. Brown turned out to be somewhat moderate—he was, after all, representing the Bay State—and his time in the Senate was short because Elizabeth Warren defeated him in 2012. But in the midterm elections months after his win, a big group of fiscally conservative politicians were elected to Congress as anti-establishment critics of the go-along-to-get-along GOP, which they felt wasn't doing enough to stand up to Obama. Led by Tea Party activists and elected officials, Republicans managed to narrow but not stop the Affordable Care Act, which Obama signed in March 2010; they briefly but only fleetingly reduced federal spending and budget deficits. By 2016, the Tea Party was a spent force. Its anti-establishment energy became the basis for Donald Trump's political movement, with which it shared a strong element of racial backlash. Trump provided the pugilistic approach that many Republican voters had demanded, but without any of the commitment to fiscal discipline: He pledged to protect Medicare and Social Security, and in his first term hugely expanded the deficit. But now there's a revival of Tea Party ideas in Washington, driven by some of the same elected officials. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act follows the long-running Republican principle of reducing taxes, especially on the wealthy, but it doesn't even pretend to cut spending commensurate with the reductions in revenue those tax cuts would produce. This is standard for Republican presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Trump all ran for office railing against deficits, and then increased them while in office. They were eager to lower taxes, but not to make the politically unpopular choices necessary to actually reduce federal spending. In theory, at least, the Tea Party represented a more purist approach that insisted on cutting budgets, even if that meant taking on politically dangerous tasks such as slashing entitlements. (Republicans could also produce a more balanced budget by increasing revenue through taxes, but they refuse to seriously consider that.) Some of the Tea Party OGs are striking the same tones today. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, elected in the 2010 wave, has emerged as the foremost Republican critic of the GOP bill. 'The math doesn't really add up,' he said on Face the Nation earlier this month. Trump called Paul's ideas 'crazy' and, according to Paul, briefly uninvited him from an annual congressional picnic at the White House. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, another member of the class of 2010, has also demanded more spending cuts and described the bill's approach as ' completely unsustainable.' 'I'm saying things that people know need to be said,' he told The Wall Street Journal. 'The kid who just exposed that the king is butt-naked may not be real popular, because he kind of made everybody else look like fools, but they all recognize he was right.' (The White House has lately been working to court Johnson.) Standing alongside these senators are representatives such as Andy Harris of Maryland, who was elected in 2010; Paul's fellow Kentuckian (and fellow Trump target) Thomas Massie, who arrived in the House in 2012; and Chip Roy, a Texan who first came to Washington in 2013 as chief of staff for Tea Party–aligned Senator Ted Cruz. Staring them down is Speaker Mike Johnson. Like Paul Ryan, who was a role model for many Tea Partiers but clashed with the hard right once he became speaker of the House, Johnson has frustrated former comrades by backing off his former fiscal conservatism in the name of passing legislation. As my colleague Jonathan Chait has written, this has led Johnson and his allies to brazenly lie about what the bill would do. The neo–Tea Partiers are not the only challenge for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. More mainstream and moderate GOP members are skittish about a bill that is deeply unpopular and will cut services that their constituents favor or depend on. Nor is fiscal conservatism the only revival of Tea Party rhetoric. Zohran Mamdani's victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary has elicited a new burst of bigotry, sometimes from the same exact people. Meanwhile, Democrats are experiencing their own echoes of 2010, as voters demand more from elected officials, and anti-establishment candidates such as Mamdani win. The 2025 Tea Party wave faces difficulties the first wave didn't. Rather than being able to organize Republicans against a Democratic president, Paul, Johnson, and company are opposing a Republican president who is deeply popular with members of Congress and primary voters. Roy threatened to vote against the bill in the House but then backed down. Now he says he might vote against the Senate bill when the two are reconciled. 'Chip Roy says he means it this time,' snickered Politico this week, noting that he and his allies have 'drawn and re-drawn their fiscal red lines several times over now.' Then again, how better to honor their predecessors than to back down from a demand for real fiscal discipline? President Donald Trump said that he had cut off trade negotiations with Canada because of Canada's tax on tech companies that would also affect those based in America. The Supreme Court limited federal courts' ability to implement nationwide injunctions in a decision that left unclear the fate of Trump's executive order restricting birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court ruled that parents can withdraw their children from public-school classes on days that storybooks with LGBTQ themes are discussed if they have religious objections. Dispatches Atlantic Intelligence: Damon Beres interviews Rose Horowitch about her latest story on why the computer-science bubble is bursting. The Books Briefing: As a writer and an editor, Toni Morrison put humanity plainly on the page, where it would outlast her and her critics alike, Boris Kachka writes. Evening Read The Three Marine Brothers Who Feel 'Betrayed' by America By Xochitl Gonzalez The four men in jeans and tactical vests labeled Police: U.S. Border Patrol had Narciso Barranco surrounded. Their masks and hats concealed their faces, so that only their eyes were visible. When they'd approached him, he was doing landscape work outside of an IHOP in Santa Ana, California. Frightened, Barranco attempted to run away. By the time a bystander started filming, the agents had caught him and pinned him, face down, on the road. One crouches and begins to pummel him, repeatedly, in the head. You can hear Barranco moaning in pain. Eventually, the masked men drag him to his feet and try to shove him into an SUV. When Barranco resists, one agent takes a rod and wedges it under his neck, attempting to steer him into the vehicle as if prodding livestock. Barranco is the father of three sons, all of them United States Marines. The eldest brother is a veteran, and the younger men are on active duty. At any moment, the same president who sent an emboldened ICE after their father could also command them into battle. More From The Atlantic Culture Break Coming soon. A new season of the Autocracy in America podcast, hosted by Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and democracy activist. Watch (or skip). Squid Game 's final season (out now on Netflix) is a reminder of what the show did so well, in the wrong ways, Shirley Li writes. Play our daily crossword. P.S. Tuesday was a red-letter day for blue language in the Gray Lady. The New York Times is famously shy about four-letter words; the journalist Blake Eskin noted in 2022 that the paper had published three separate articles about the satirical children's book Go the Fuck to Sleep, all without ever printing the actual name of the book. An article about Emil Bove III, which I wrote about yesterday, was tricky for the Times: The notable thing about the story was the language allegedly used. In its second paragraph, the Times used one of its standard circumlocutions: 'In Mr. Reuveni's telling, Mr. Bove discussed disregarding court orders, adding an expletive for emphasis.' It printed the word itself in the 16th paragraph, perhaps because any children reading would have gotten bored and moved on by then. The same day, the Times reported, unexpurgated, on Trump's anger at Iran and Israel: 'We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don't know what the fuck they're doing,' the president told reporters. I was curious about the discussions behind these choices. In a suitably Times -y email, the newspaper spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha told me: 'Editors decided it was newsworthy that the president of the United States used a curse word to make a point on one of the biggest issues of the day, and did so in openly showing frustration with an ally as well as an adversary.' It's another Trumpian innovation: expanding the definition of news fit to print.
