"No Kings" Protests Tied to Assassination Of Minnesota State Representative
State Senator Also Shot But Is Expected To Survive
The “No Kings” protests planned for this weekend have apparently claimed two Minnesota Democrats as their first victims.
Earlier today former Minnesota House Speaker and current State Representative Melissa Hortman was shot and killed at her home, along with her husband Mark.
Shortly after, in what was apparently a related shooting, Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot multiple times.
Both politicians are Democrats.
Both couples live relatively close to each other in Champlin and Brooklyn Park, just north of Minneapolis.
After police responded to Hortman’s murder, officers were proactively dispatched to Senator Hoffman’s residence—the Brooklyn Park police apparently engaged the shooter, exchanging shots before the shooter fled the scene on foot.
The suspect was apparently impersonating a police officer.
The officers found a person who was dressed as a police officer -- wearing a vest and a badge, and with a Taser and other equipment -- at the door, coming out of Hortman's house, police said.
The suspect fired at the officers; gunfire was exchanged and the suspect was able to escape and flee on foot, authorities said.
The suspect has since been identified as Vance Boelter, 57, who had formerly served on the Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Development Council, having been appointed first in 2016 and then reapppointed in 2019 by Governor Tim Walz.
Based on evidence recovered from a vehicle near Senator Hoffman’s home, the shootings were politically motivated—and were to be among several political figures targeted. Police recovered a list of over 70 names, according to CNN.
Significantly, among the materials recovered from the shooter’s abandoned vehicle by the Brooklyn Park and Minnesota State Patrol were a number of “No Kings” flyers. The Minnesota State Patrol publicly requested people to stay away from any “No Kings” protests planned for today.
“No Kings” events in Minnesota have since been canceled.
It cannot be said often enough or forcefully enough that political violence is no substitute for political debate. There has been no evidence reported connecting the shooter to any of the “No Kings” protest organizers, and it may very well be the flyers were simply coincidental to the shooter’s own political agenda.
Regardless of that agenda, advancing it through assassination is just as evil as advancing an agenda through riots and insurrection.
Leveraging another’s insurrection to perpetrate even one assassination is simply evil upon evil.
I repeat what I said earlier when writing about the Democrat Insurrection in Los Angeles:
People have a First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.
People have a First Amendment right to speak their minds.
People have a First Amendment right to petition for redress of grievances, and to advocate for such policies as they believe are proper for this country.
People have these rights, and they should utilize them.
First Amendment rights do not include rioting.
First Amendment rights do not include insurrection.
First Amendment rights do not include violence of any kind, nor any damage either public or private property.
First Amendment rights absolutely do not include murder.
Anyone engaging in rioting, insurrection, violence, or murder and mayhem is not making any sort of political statement, and they are not expressing any sort of political message. They are committing a crime.
Wherever it happens, whenever it happens, with whomever it happens, it needs to stop.
Period.
End of Sentence.
End of Discussion.
You know what else is evil? The local media, here in Minneapolis, has done whatever it could to “imply” that somehow this is the work of right-wing extremists. If you go to the website of the main newspaper, www.startribune.com, you’ll find a dozen or more articles covering this, and you can see what I mean. A sentence stating the killer had a “political manifesto” pointedly did NOT say that it was leftist; the reader was left to infer, from other phrasings, that this was right-wing. Articles pointedly did NOT say WHY the killer did this, apparently so that a reader could jump to his own conclusion of essentially “Bad Man Orange!”. Initially, when the story broke this morning, the articles seemed to be stoking people to get out and protest at the virtuous “No Kings” rallies. But then, as the media found out the killer was reportedly a left-wing appointee of Governor Tampon Tim, they toned that down. By early this afternoon the media was warning people to NOT attend the rallies, to “stay safe” - as if, it a metro of 3.2 million people the killer would just happen to gun down YOU. It’s all been shameful corporate media. Personally, I think the media has been telling people to not attend the rallies because they are a bust. We’ve had light drizzle most of the day, the crowds are not as big as expected, and now they’ll have a good excuse why the rallies failed - people had to stay away to “stay safe”, of course!
I will bet that in coverage of the rallies, they will film from angles that make the crowd look much bigger than it was. Then, as basically a footnote, they will say that of course, the crowds would have been “even bigger, if there hadn’t been this killer on the loose!”
Apparently part of the motive, Rep Horton voted against aid to illegals and Sen Hoffman voted “present”. So anyone who wants to say it was a right winger doing this is wrong. Who he was appointed by and what he had in his car were (or should be) proof of what this nut job stands for.
Everything you have said here is spot on point !