What we know about the Minnesota shooting suspect

The man accused of shooting Democratic state lawmakers in Minnesota on Saturday while impersonating a police officer worked for a security company that advertised a fleet of “police type vehicles,” and other equipment that could potentially have aided him in appearing to be law enforcement.

Vance Boelter was also an outspoken evangelical Christian who traveled to Africa to tell his faith story and, in at least one sermon, pointedly questioned American morals on sexual orientation, according to videos and social media posts reviewed by CNN.

Boelter was a conservative who was strongly against abortion rights, a longtime friend told CNN on Saturday. But Boelter never mentioned any particular anger with the lawmakers who were shot, said David Carlson.

“It wasn’t the thing that defined him,” he said of his religious and political beliefs.

Carlson added, “He wasn’t a hateful person. But he needed help.”

Boelter, 57, was arrested Sunday night in the city of Green Isle, Minnesota, where he lived, according to authorities. He’s accused of killing one lawmaker and her husband and wounding another and his wife early Saturday. Officials said he left behind an apparent hit list with dozens of names in his car after exchanging fire with police outside the home of one victim and fleeing the scene. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, said the attack “appears to be a politically motivated assassination.”

State officials said authorities early on Saturday encountered what appeared to be a police vehicle with emergency flashing lights in the driveway of Rep. Melissa Hortman’s home. Officers at the home “saw (Boelter)…dressed as a police officer, shoot an adult man” through the open front door, according to a criminal complaint obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. The suspect “exchanged gunfire” with police and ran into the house, ultimately disappearing from the area, according to the complaint.

Hortman – the top Democrat in the Minnesota House – and her husband were both killed. At a nearby home, Minnesota State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot but are in stable condition after surgery.

Police said they are still investigating a motive for the attacks. The names on the list, which CNN obtained, are largely Democrats or figures with ties to Planned Parenthood or the abortion rights movement. The list included prominent lawmakers like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Sen. Tina Smith as well as Planned Parenthood leaders. Police said Boelter also had fliers for anti-Trump protests in his car, raising fears that he may also have intended to target those rallies.

Boelter largely shied away from political posts in his publicly available social media feeds and did not discuss abortion rights in any religious speeches reviewed by CNN. In one talk he gave in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2023, he appeared sharply critical of LGBTQ rights.

“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,” he said in a sermon at a Pentecostal church in eastern DRC.

Carlson said Boelter was recently having financial problems, possibly due to his regular travels to Africa. The security firm had failed to find traction, Carlson said, leaving Boelter scrambling to find work, including at a funeral home.

“Problem is, he quit all his jobs to go down there,” he said. “And then he comes back and tries to find new jobs. Wasn’t working out that good.”

Those who knew Boelter from his church work said they were stunned that he was linked to the violence on Saturday.

Pastor McNay Nkashama, who said he knew Boelter as a volunteer who preached Christianity, said he was struggling to reconcile the allegations with the man he knew.

“Of all the people I know, he would not hurt a fly,” Nkashama said in a brief telephone interview. “I just cannot believe it.”

Although Boelter lived in the small town of Green Isle about an hour outside Minneapolis, he often crashed in Carlson’s rented home in the city.

Carlson, 59, spoke with reporters Saturday night in front of the small home after returning from the lumber store to buy plywood for the windows, which had been busted open by a SWAT team earlier in the day.

Carlson said he last heard from Boelter around 6:30 pm on Friday night. He said he knocked on Boelter’s door, and when Boelter said he was tired, Carlson watched TV and went to bed.

He said he awoke around 6:30 am Saturday and soon after he saw a text message from Boelter. It’s unclear when the text was sent. Carlson declined to read it to reporters on Saturday night, but Reuters had reported earlier that Boelter told Carlson that he might be dead soon.

After seeing the text message, Carlson said, he called the police.

“I thought he would do self-harm; I didn’t think he was … ” his voice trailed off.

Boelter served on a state board with Hoffman, records show. In 2019, Walz put Boelter on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board – a group of business owners who recommend policies to the state government. In a letter, Walz said the post was in recognition of Boelter’s “integrity, judgment, and ability.”

According to a spokesperson for the governor, the development board, which has more than 60 members, is one of many external boards and commissions whose members are unpaid and come from “all parties.” The spokesperson said the governor does not interview applicants to the boards.

It’s unclear how closely Boelter and Hoffman interacted in that role, if at all.

“We are still exploring that,” Drew Evans, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent said in a news conference Saturday afternoon about whether Boelter knew the victims directly. “There’s certainly some overlap with some public meetings, I will say, with Sen. Hoffman and the individual, but we don’t know the nature of the relationship or if they actually knew each other.”

Boelter has worked as director of security patrols for Praetorian Guard Security Services, which provides “random armed patrols” of customers’ properties, according to the company’s webpage – which also suggests he could have had access to uniforms and equipment that could aid in impersonating a police officer.

The firm was registered to Boelter’s home address and listed a woman who is apparently his wife as president and CEO; she did not respond to messages from CNN.

The site advertised that the firm had “police-type vehicles” and noted, “We drive the same make and model of vehicles that many police departments use in the U.S. Currently we drive Ford Explorer Utility Vehicles.”

The firm’s website boasted of Boelter having experience in foreign conflict zones. It said that he was “involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.”

Video from outside Hortman’s home on Saturday showed law enforcement towing a black Ford Explorer equipped with police lights. Archived photos from a home previously owned by Boelter show a similar vehicle in the driveway.

In speeches reviewed by CNN, Boelter described his deep faith and said he was born again into the church as a teenager.

“I met Jesus when I was 17 years old and I gave my life to him,” Boelter told the church in the DRC in February 2023. “And I just wanted to tell everybody about Jesus.”

Records also show that Boelter once launched a Christian nonprofit called Revoformation Ministries. An archived website under that name includes a biography of him, describing Boelter as having traveled extensively to preach Christianity, including in the Middle East, where the site says he had sought out “militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn’t the answer.”

That website described Boelter as a reverend and an author, noting that he had written a book that presents a “different paradigm on the nature of man and our relationship with God.”

CNN reviewed numerous videos of Boelter preaching in the DRC from 2021 to 2023. Boelter appears emotional when describing his religious devotion. He also frequently talked about his connection to the DRC and what he perceived as the suffering the country has endured due to decades of internal conflict and meddling of other countries.

“I’ve been to North and South America, I’ve been to the Middle East, I’ve been to Eastern Europe, and I’ve been in the DRC. I’ve never been in a country before like the DRC that has had so much taken away. I hear the history, and it hits my heart. So many people, so many countries have taken, taken, taken,” he said in 2022.

Boelter said he worked at major food brands such as Nestlé, and was the general manager of a 7-11, according to an online resume.

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Boelter registered to vote as a Republican in the early 2000s, state records show. Carlson said he was a Trump voter. In a post six years ago on LinkedIn, Boelter encouraged people to vote and wrote, “I think the election is going to have more of an impact on the direction of our country than probably any election we have been apart of, or will be apart of for years to come.”

A state document that listed his 2019 appointment to a development board noted he had “no party preference.”

Boelter’s LinkedIn page claims he had a doctorate in educational leadership and a masters of science in management, both from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, and he used the prefix Dr. on his website and social media. Social media posts also indicate he has multiple children.

A search of Minnesota criminal records showed no cases against Boelter aside from some traffic charges.

Boelter had a property outside the small town of Green Isle, about 50 miles west of Minneapolis, according to records. A sheriff’s deputy was blocking a gravel road leading to the home on Saturday afternoon. In the town’s restaurants and bars, no one who spoke to CNN knew Boelter or his family.

Carlson said he thought Boelter’s recent financial struggles may have pushed him into violence.

“He was looking around, but maybe things didn’t work out and he just gave up and decided to go out in the blaze of glory,” he said. “I have no idea what he was thinking.”