From the Editorial Board: Shootings of Minnesota lawmakers are a blow to trust and good faith

Opinion editor’s note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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Rep. Melissa Hortman, former speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark, were killed in their home early Saturday morning by someone impersonating a police officer. Several miles away, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times by someone also presenting themselves as an officer of the law. As of this writing, the Hoffmans have survived.

This was no accident. It was not a mistaken address or a swatting call gone wrong. There is much to be learned about motive, but this much is certain: The attack was targeted political violence — an assassination and an attempted assassination, carried out with chilling premeditation and precision.

A manifesto found in the suspect’s vehicle included a “kill list,” naming elected officials and other public servants. The toll could have been worse.

Even in the midst of rending heartbreak, Minnesotans must remain mindful of how our government has tried to function recently: with decency, with compromise, with shared commitment to the common good. “In the state of Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Walz said in a news conference Saturday morning, “as recently as last week in the most closely divided state Legislature in the country, we sat down, we worked things out, we debated, we shook hands and compromised, and we served the state of Minnesota together.”

It was sharp, fast police work that possibly kept this from becoming a massacre. Officers responding to the shooting at the Hoffman home quickly realized it was not likely an isolated event. They feared other public officials might be next. They were right. It was not long after the discovery of the wounded Hoffmans that Hortman and her husband were found. By midafternoon, authorities had identified 57-year-old Vance Boelter as a suspect. An intensive manhunt continued as the deadline for this article arrived.

The horror we are now experiencing is almost unspeakable. But we must speak of it — and name it for what it is. This was an attack not just on two families, but on all of us. On our sense of safety. On our system of self-government. On the quiet agreements we rely on to live together in peace.

“This was an act of targeted political violence,” Walz said Saturday. “Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. We don’t settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint.”

By using the trust we place in law enforcement as a disguise, the attacker sought to tear at the very fabric of public life. This action must not shake our trust in the women and men who serve and protect this state every day.

Melissa Hortman, 55, recently assumed the title of speaker emerita when control of the House was split this year. She worked across the aisle to keep government running. Her compromise with Republicans on health care coverage for undocumented immigrants angered some in her caucus — but it also helped avoid a damaging state shutdown. Now she’s gone.

John Hoffman, 60, brought years of experience in business, nonprofits, and the Anoka-Hennepin school board to the Senate. He chaired this year’s human services funding committee and was known for his friendly demeanor and bipartisan work ethic. His specialty was helping Minnesotans with disabilities — the kind of legislative work that’s hard, humble and essential. We pray for his and wife’s survival and return to health.

Both Hortman and Hoffman served long and well before this event. They earned respect. They believed in public service, even when it meant taking heat. They believed that compromise could be honorable. That government, though imperfect, could still work.

Families are grieving. The weight of this violence will stay with us. But even now, in this darkest of moments, we must resist the urge to despair. We must not answer violence with more rage.

Walz wisely recommended late Saturday morning that people refrain from attending any of the protests that were planned throughout Minnesota today, though many went on as planned. Meanwhile, this is an ongoing time of protest in our country. Let them be peaceful. Let them honor the rights we all share. Those rights endure only if we protect them — not with violence, but with dignity and restraint.

This is a time for mourning. But also for moral clarity. What happened early Saturday morning was wicked.