Vance Boelter wasn’t acting like a man ready to go to war.
On the afternoon of June 11, the barrel-chested 57-year-old sat with his wife, Jenny, and sister watching family members play softball, his casual demeanor belying what brewed behind his dark eyes.
“Everything seemed fine,” said Mary Kavan, a longtime friend of Boelter’s family. “He didn’t seem a little off or anything.”
Yet Boelter had already taken the first steps in a plan to assassinate Minnesota politicians and abortion advocates, according to federal and state charging documents. Two days earlier, he’d gone to Fleet Farm and bought a tactical rifle case, ammunition, a flashlight and lettering to make the license plate on his black Ford Explorer read “POLICE.”
Early on June 14, Boelter used these tools to carry out his plan. Disguised as a police officer, he traveled to the suburban homes of Minnesota lawmakers, knocked on their doors and opened fire, charges say.
Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, survived with serious injuries from a total of 17 bullets; former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed.
Boelter had already been preparing his family for a major catastrophe, prosecutors say. In a subsequent text message that he sent his wife fleeing to northern Minnesota, Boelter nodded to a belief he was part of a greater cause.
“Dad went to war last night,” he wrote, according to prosecutors.