90 chaotic minutes: Where was alleged killer between two political shootings in Minnesota?

The alleged assassin was in a hurry.

Federal criminal charges claim that Vance Boelter believed he was at war last weekend in the Twin Cities and he acted as such.

After shooting Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in the doorway of their Champlin home in the early hours of Saturday morning, Boelter climbed into his black SUV. He had security lights activated and flashing off garage doors in the Hoffmans’ quaint, winding middle-class neighborhood.

His car was loaded with assault rifles, ammo and a medical kit.

Hope Hoffman, the daughter of John and Yvette, called 911 at 2:06 a.m. to report the shooting.

Boelter, 57, had a Garmin GPS system giving him directions to Maple Grove and the home of another state lawmaker. It was 9 miles away and approximately a 14-minute drive between the two properties. He would have navigated leafy suburban streets dense with houses before heading south. The timing of his actions make it likely he headed down Hwy. 169 and exited onto residential side streets past tennis courts and Little League fields near Eagle Lake.

Surveillance cameras from the Maple Grove home show him knocking at the door at 2:24 a.m. The politician was out of town.

No one knew it, but the largest manhunt in state history was already underway.

As Champlin and Brooklyn Park police officers arrived at the Hoffmans, they quickly spread the word that the suspect was “in a cop car, dressed as a cop.”

Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley took over as the incident commander on the scene and coordinated law enforcement actions as the search for a suspect began.

Looking back on the early moments of the investigation, Bruley said Tuesday that, “This entire thing has been chaotic, but it was a very chaotic first two hours.”

In that chaos, Boelter was on the move again.

His GPS took him from Maple Grove to the home of Sen. Ann Rest in New Hope. He circled back the way he came, heading farther south on Hwy. 169. It was approximately 5 miles and 9 minutes away. At 2:36 a.m., 12 minutes after Boelter knocked on the door in Maple Grove, a New Hope police officer came upon him near Rest’s home.

The officer was performing a wellness check on the politician. It is unclear how that check came to be and if other law enforcement agencies were already aware that Boelter was targeting state politicians.

New Hope Police Chief Tim Hoyt said in a statement that the officer “self-dispatched” to the house as details of the search “were still rapidly developing and information about the suspect and vehicle was still being determined.”

State and federal investigators have said in recent days that when the officer approached the SUV, Boelter was sitting in the driver’s seat staring straight ahead and did not respond to questions from the officer. Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said Monday that Boelter was likely wearing a silicone face mask at the time.

Drew Evans, superintendent of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said at a news conference Monday that, “I don’t know the specifics of the question, but what I will tell you is Hennepin County law enforcement working together knew” it was a political shooting “and some of them did proactive” investigations.

The New Hope officer, not realizing they had just encountered the suspect, went to go check on Rest. After seeing no signs of distress, the officer waited for more law enforcement vehicles to arrive then circled back to where the SUV had been parked.

Boelter was gone.

He wasn’t seen again for an hour. What he did in that timespan remains unclear. A spokesperson for the BCA said they are actively investigating what happened after the New Hope police officer encountered Boelter.

It was a 12-mile drive back north toward Brooklyn Park. The home of Rep. Hortman and her husband, Mark, is situated deep in a neighborhood with playgrounds peeking between the houses. Turning onto their street, a Neighborhood Watch sign hangs in plain sight.

Shortly after Boelter arrived, so did Brooklyn Park police. It was 3:30 a.m.

Bruley has praised Sgt. Rielly Nordan for the foresight to dispatch officers to the Hortman residence. Boelter’s SUV was parked in the driveway with lights on and flashing. Boelter was standing several feet to the left of the front door. He killed Mark Hortman directly in front of a Brooklyn Park officer, who fired at Boelter.

Boelter went inside and continued firing shots, muzzle flashes lighting up the windows. He killed Melissa Hortman and shot the family dog, Gilbert. Questions remain if Boelter shot back out of the house at law enforcement, but Bruley said there was an intense amount of gunfire.

“You had the officers shooting at the suspect, the suspect shoots Mark right in the entryway, he goes in the house and he starts shooting in the house,“ Bruley said. ”It’s really, really chaotic. As they called ‘shots fired,’ lots and lots of resources came. They converged on the house."

Bruley said part of what might have led to Boelter’s escape from the house was the belief by officers on the scene that they had shot Boelter. There was blood in the house and the working theory was Boelter was “held up in the basement.” The blood likely belonged to someone else.

“As it turned out,” Bruley continued, “he didn’t get hit and he got out.”

After SWAT teams converged, a drone was sent into the home where Melissa Hortman was discovered dead.

The Hortmans’ home backs up to Edinburgh Golf Course. A bridge stretches over a pond abutting two fairways in their back yard. There are paths for golf carts, dense tree cover in the distance and endless space for walking.

Bruley said it was 4:30 or 5 a.m. when one of his officers brought detectives a collection of paperwork from Boelter’s SUV.

“I saw them open it up. They’re like, ‘Chief, I think this is a hit list,’” Bruley recalled.

A relentless, multifaceted law enforcement search for Boelter exploded as shock gripped the state. A shelter-in-place order was issued at 5:30 a.m. for Brooklyn Park.

At that point, Boelter was gone.

He would be found 40 hours later, 60 miles away, in a field not far from his home.