- 6 months ago
Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and other Minnesota officials hold press briefing after Vance Boelter, the suspect in the shootings of two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses, is apprehended.
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NewsTranscript
00:30Good evening.
00:35After a two-day manhunt, two sleepless nights, law enforcement have apprehended Vance Bolter.
00:41That's 48 hours that law enforcement involved in a complex and dangerous manhunt.
00:48Spent Father's Day away from their families to deliver justice for Melissa and Mark Hortman
00:56and their children who spent this Father's Day alone.
00:59To the law enforcement who stand here and the hundreds who are involved in this, the state of Minnesota owes you a deep breath of gratitude.
01:08You ran towards the danger and you served the state of Minnesota.
01:13This is a great example of coordination and collaboration.
01:18Multiple agencies, federal, state, and local, coordinating together in a way to protect the public and close this hunt around.
01:28Multiple agencies were there as FBI laid hands on it and Minnesota State Patrol put the handcuffs on.
01:34One man's unthinkable actions have altered the state of Minnesota.
01:40Melissa Hortman was the core of who our values were.
01:44She had a hand in so many things that happened.
01:47The building that we stand in, she helped usher through so that we could respond from the State Emergency Operations Center with the professionalism and giving the tools necessary to law enforcement to do their job.
01:59To Melissa and Mark's family, you cannot fathom your pain and the grief that you're going through.
02:07We'll take solace in the memory and the work that Melissa did.
02:12And you can rest assured that we will put every ounce of effort that the state of Minnesota has to make sure that justice is served and the individual responsible for this serves the time for the unspeakable act.
02:27State grieves with you.
02:29To John and Yvette Hoffman, the latest news is Senator Hoffman came out of his final surgery and is moving towards that, towards recovery.
02:38Yvette is healing.
02:42And I think when the story comes out, and I'd like to say on behalf of the State of Minnesota, the heroic actions by the Hoffman family and their daughter, Hope, saved countless lives.
02:50And we are grateful.
02:52Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will continue to investigate.
02:55We will keep you informed.
02:57We'll spare no expense and no work to make sure that that happens.
03:01A moment in this country where we watched violence erupt.
03:08This cannot be the norm.
03:10It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences.
03:14Now's the time for us to recommit to the core values of this country.
03:19And each and every one of us can do it.
03:22Talk to a neighbor rather than arguing.
03:24Debate an issue.
03:26Shake hands.
03:27Find common ground.
03:29This is who Melissa Hortman was.
03:31In the first negotiating session that I had a chance to work with her, she got all the partners in the room, and she provided each and every one of us a copy of a book called Getting to Yes.
03:41And the whole premise was debating with a sense of goodwill.
03:45A sense of trying to come to compromises that serve everyone.
03:50And because of her, we did that.
03:53Because of her, we did that year after year after year.
03:56That's the embodiment of how things are supposed to work.
04:00It's not about hatred.
04:01It's not about mean tweets.
04:03It's not about demeaning someone.
04:05It's leading with grace and compassion and vision and compromise and decency.
04:11That was taken from us in Minnesota with the murder of Speaker Hortman.
04:18So for each and every one of us to truly honor, and we will, we will continue to honor that spirit.
04:24But we will need to do it in just more than actions in a memorial.
04:28Conducting ourselves in the spirit that Melissa Hortman did her work is what the country needs to heal.
04:36I will once again say the deep debt of gratitude.
04:41These professionals standing behind us and countless others.
04:46This was, you'll hear from them, incredibly complex.
04:50And to take the suspect in with no life of life or injuries to civilian population and to bring him in alive so he can serve justice, which he will do in Minnesota, is an incredible thing that we are grateful for.
05:03With that, I'm going to turn it over to the professionals, starting with Commissioner of Public Safety for the State of Minnesota, Bob Jacobson.
05:12Good evening.
05:18It's good to see you all here tonight.
05:23Thank you for coming in.
05:24My name is Bob Jacobson.
05:26I'm the Commissioner of Public Safety.
05:28And again, it's my honor to serve in that position.
05:31First of all, I want to thank all of the law enforcement agencies that have been working tirelessly over the past two years since the shooting at Senator Hoffman's home.
05:41The coordination between state, local, and federal law enforcement partners is the reason we are here tonight and the suspect is in custody.
05:51Both are exploited to trust our uniforms are meant to represent.
05:57That betrayal is deeply disturbing to those of us who wear the badge with honor and responsibility.
06:04We want to thank community members across the state for their support, for their tips, and their information.
06:13And I want to thank Governor Walz for his continued support through this very difficult time.
06:19With that, I will pass this off to Superintendent Drew Evans of the BCA.
06:29Well, good evening, everyone.
06:31My name is Drew Evans.
06:32I'm Superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
06:35As was noted and was previously described, Vance Bolter was taken into custody in Sibley County.
06:43We were with you earlier today when we provided information about the manhunt and the myriad of law enforcement that have come together working in partnership so that this evil cannot be continued.
06:56The first step in a case like this is that we take him into custody and then the work will continue and begin to make sure that we have all the evidence we need to ensure that he is held accountable for his crimes.
07:08Please bear with me, but I think it's important because it has been noted by the governor just to give you some background on the teams that were down there.
07:15And I may even be missing some in terms of this because there were law enforcement partners, not just from the Twin Cities, but across the state of Minnesota that came together.
07:23From the Brooklyn Park Police Department, the Tri-City SWAT Team, Egan Police Department, Burnsville Police Department, our South Metro SWAT Team, the FBI, ATF, United States Marshal Service, State Patrol, Washington County Sheriff's Office, Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, the Richfield Police Department, St. Paul Police Department, Bloomington Police Department, Sibley County.
07:47We had Riverview Medics, Green Isle Fire Department, and Life Link in the area in addition to Prior Lake, Crow River SWAT, and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office.
08:00And again, I may have been missing and I apologize to my partners for that, that we do that.
08:04I share all of that for you because that's the commitment when this sort of evil is in one of our communities, that law enforcement comes together to put all of their resources together to make sure that that person is taken into custody.
08:16That is so that people across the state of Minnesota and legislators that were targeted in these attacks and that may have been listed can breathe a sigh of relief as quickly as possible as we came together in an incredibly complex set of circumstances in that.
08:31He was arrested, as you saw earlier this evening, in the area of 35600 block of 200th Street, Green Isle.
08:43What happened in that is, as we noted, there was a manhunt going throughout the day in that area that we've discussed previously, and there was information provided that he was seen in the area.
08:54When that information was provided to the investigators that were conducting the ground search, they converged on the area with a number of SWAT teams with the assistance of the air wing from Minnesota State Patrol.
09:08And we'll provide a few more details about the end of coming into custody in a little bit, but he was taken into custody at that time.
09:14He is in custody, and a reminder for anybody that was not, when he was previously said that, taken into custody under a state criminal warrant.
09:24That information will be made public, if it is not already, detailing the complaint that he is charged in the cases at this time with the murders of Speaker Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, also with the shootings in John Hoffman and Yvette Hoffman for those crimes, and we'll be moving forward.
09:45We are also in close contact with our federal partners, both the FBI, United States Attorney's Office, who are examining whether or not additional charges should be brought at the federal level related to this at this time.
09:58There is a lot of investigation that continues, and I'm going to turn it over to Chief Bruley to provide some comments on this and the work.
10:04I just want to tell, certainly for the communities of Champlin, City of Brooklyn Park, you both have incredibly professional police departments that work day in, day out and tirelessly in this situation to bring justice and work towards that, not only for the families and the loved ones and the community that are impacted, but for the entire state of Minnesota.
10:24And our teams are incredibly proud to work alongside them and all the law enforcement partners.
10:29And so with that, I will turn it over to Chief Bruley for some comments on this, and the work will continue in partnership with them and others moving forward.
10:36Chief.
10:39Good evening.
10:40I'm Police Chief Mark Bruley, Brooklyn Park Police Department.
10:42I just have a few comments.
10:43One, I'm very proud to tell you that we took the suspect into custody who is responsible for this.
10:48That was within 43 hours of the incident.
10:52There's no question that this is the largest manhunt in the state's history.
10:57Just down at the scene where he was taken into custody, there was 20 different SWAT teams over an extremely large area hunting this individual down to take him into custody.
11:08I believe that the state of Minnesota and certainly the city of Brooklyn Park should be extremely proud of the police officers within the city of Brooklyn Park.
11:16The partnerships that we had are unprecedented between the federal agents, the county, the locals, and others around.
11:24It is absolutely an incredible task what went on.
11:28Essentially, the Brooklyn Park Police Department was turned over into an operations center.
11:33And that's all that hundreds of detectives worked on tirelessly for 43 hours.
11:38So, while this has come to some conclusion where we've made an arrest, there is a ton of work that needs to be done.
11:44So, I encourage community members, if there's evidence, information, or other things, please continue to feed that information to the Brooklyn Park Police Department so that we can fully investigate this and present a complete case to both the federal jurisdiction and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office.
12:00With that, I'll turn it over to the State Patrol.
12:07Good evening, everyone. My name is Jeremy Geiger. I'm the Lieutenant Colonel with the Minnesota State Patrol, the Assistant Chief.
12:12The Minnesota State Patrol, along with countless other partners, were responsible for this arrest.
12:18The collaborative effort, I cannot stress enough how outstanding that was, helped ensure the suspect's arrest did not result in the injury of any law enforcement that was down there and in the area.
12:29We had special response teams on the scene near 200 streets in Sibley County.
12:34Several partner law enforcement SWAT teams positioned to form a perimeter at that point in time.
12:40The State Patrol also provided the air support that was talked about earlier today.
12:44The suspect crawled to law enforcement teams and was placed under arrest at that point in time.
12:50There was no use of force by any member of law enforcement that was out there and the suspect was taken into custody without any use of force.
12:59With that, we'll open it up for a few questions.
13:03A reminder, please introduce yourself, your media organization.
13:06If you have a question for one of the specific individuals, please feel free to point that out as well.
13:11You know, the question is, were there any key mistakes?
13:28We certainly, at this point, there's a lot of information we can't share right now in this.
13:33What I will tell you is there is some incredibly dedicated law enforcement personnel, criminal intelligence analysts that were out working day in, day out, working together.
13:42And what I will tell you is that the public certainly is always of his assistance to us in law enforcement and incredibly diligent people in the area that provided us the assistance that we needed to get our teams that were already down there that last piece over.
13:58But they were certainly in the area and working diligently together on that.
14:05The question is, is at any indication anybody helped them?
14:12We continue to look into that.
14:13I don't have anything beyond what we shared earlier today.
14:16This investigation, as Chief Bruehly noted, will be continuing to expand at this point in time to make sure that we continue to look at all angles of this.
14:24And everybody did help him.
14:25We will certainly help them accountable for doing that in this process.
14:30Can you tell us how the Hoffmans helped save lives and what did the suspects say when he was taken into custody?
14:41The question was how the Hoffmans helped save lives and what did he say when he was taken into custody?
14:47I don't have the specifics on what he said when he was taken into custody.
14:50You know, we're incredibly grateful that the Hoffmans are still here with us at this point in time and that they will be hopefully on a continued path to recovery and that they will provide us the information.
15:04We've been able to talk to them today and they will be providing key information to us as part of this investigation moving forward.
15:11Did the suspect have a phone with him when he was caught?
15:21At the end, the question is, did he have a phone with him?
15:23I don't have the specifics on everything that was with him when he was arrested at this time.
15:28I will say he was armed and that he came when he was taken into custody.
15:32But we'll be sifting through all of that information from there.
15:36What's that?
15:38I can't on the weapons at this time.
15:40Just kind of elaborating on the Hoffman question.
15:45To me, the encounter at the Forten Park police and the gunfire there,
15:52the fact that you then have to abandon that vehicle with several weapons.
15:57How significant was that and preventing any sort of tragedy and ending it with him on the ground?
16:07The question is, again, expanding on the Hoffmans and providing addition.
16:12What I'll tell you, Chief Bruley mentioned this yesterday.
16:15And his police officers are going to check proactively on Speaker Hortman's home at that time.
16:22If that had not had happened, I have every confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.
16:27By his officers encountering him at that, he was forced to abandon the vehicle that he had at that time and lead to what we got to today.
16:36So by that incident occurring and the law enforcement communication that was occurring, it allowed the proactive approach that was able to get to the point where they were able to now eventually take him into custody.
16:46I just want to clarify, there's a little bit of detail that I just wanted to see if we can nail it down.
16:56So the detail that he had provided to the Star Tribune is that for about an hour, Walter had tried to evade arrest and that eight teams crawled in a ditch to try to corral him.
17:06I don't know if you have that level of detail, but additionally, because we're able to take him into custody without incident, what did your law enforcement officers say to him to work out and have it done recently?
17:18So the question is about the teams and then what was done to get him into custody.
17:24So we don't get into operational details for the safety of our law enforcement going forward in terms of what it is.
17:29But what I can say is the incredible teamwork that was done in the large number of law enforcement certainly put us in a position where they were able to maneuver into this area to safely put him in a place where, you know, I don't know what was going through his head and I wouldn't speculate.
17:44But they have incredibly professional teams that are trained on this and how to take somebody into custody and they provided the commands and he gave up peacefully.
17:52The question is the relief for all of us.
18:13I mean, the relief for us in law enforcement is we feel an incredible amount of pressure to bring a person into custody, bring safety to the community.
18:20These professionals behind me and their teams, this is what they do.
18:24This is what they get paid to do and they're honored to do the work on behalf of Minnesotans every single day.
18:29So the relief is, is that we can bring that sense of relief to communities across Minnesota, legislators that were on that list and that's what we want to do.
18:37Matt, what point did you get the call and from who generally that he was in that area?
18:47All right.
18:48The, the question was on the call and when did we get it?
18:50It was happening over the time.
18:52I don't have the specific timeline, but we were alerted as soon as there was a spotting of the person in the area for all of the command staff here and as our teams continue to work and as they worked in and honed in.
19:02Can you speak a little more about the technology that was used?
19:05You said today earlier that you see about 400 tips.
19:08Yeah.
19:09You know there are surveillance footage that was used for fixtures.
19:12You just mentioned someone talking about the air team.
19:14Was it a fixed wing?
19:15Was it a helicopter that was following in?
19:17What role is the technology?
19:19Yeah.
19:20The question is what role and I can't get into all the technology obviously.
19:23Um, just some of it is, is, uh, uh, that we do don't share the information to make sure that we protect it.
19:28So it's utilized going forward.
19:30However, I will say that both UAVs throughout the day, um, are incredibly important to our teams on unmanned aerial vehicles that we use that there were numerous ones out there providing that.
19:41And then our helicopter, uh, in this situation provides an incredibly important bird's eye view that also allows us special views to be able to see individuals such as infrared and others that we utilize on a regular basis.
19:52So technology in cases like this are incredible tools to be able to supplement the great hard work of all the people that were on the ground every day.
20:01Let's go here first.
20:04So, uh, right now he is, uh, being, uh, interviewed at a law enforcement facility.
20:13More information on where he will actually be, uh, ultimately will be released at a later time.
20:17What law enforcement agency or facility?
20:19I, I can't share where he is currently, but that information will be available soon.
20:23Yes.
20:36So this is, where was he hiding?
20:38This is in a rural area.
20:39These are fields and different wooded settings around, and that's where he was ultimately captured.
20:44Sibley County is, uh, you know, a, a, a rural county in the state of Minnesota.
20:49And so it's what a lot of that streams, fields, woods, uh, crops.
20:53And so where he was ultimately taken into custody was in a field.
20:56Did the infrared technology help find him, identify him from here?
21:02I don't know.
21:03The commissioner had mentioned some of that earlier.
21:05I wonder if that was something that helped.
21:07Yes, absolutely.
21:08It assisted, uh, previously and we are, they were out there.
21:11The helicopter was out there before, uh, the sun went down.
21:14Uh, but after that happened, yes, that technology did came into play.
21:17How long did you know that he was there?
21:21Um, uh, I'll turn that back over to the, the superintendent here too, but I, I don't think that, uh, that information is available right now.
21:28Um, Mark Bruelly, Police Chief Brooklyn Park.
21:36Uh, the question is, is how long did we know that he was there?
21:39Um, a vehicle that we believed that he was in was spotted, um, uh, many hours before and had been abandoned.
21:47Um, uh, an alert police officer believed that he may have seen the individual running into the woods.
21:52And that started a large scale, um, perimeter that we set up or down in Sibley County set up.
21:58And we started to deploy resources, including the Brooklyn Park SWAT team and along with many other SWAT teams to contain an extremely large area knowing that this is a very dangerous individual.
22:08Uh, during that, um, we got privy to additional information of an individual that was in the woods.
22:14And that search went on for many hours until ultimately we were able to locate him in the woods.
22:19And, uh, an approximately an hour and a half or so we were able to close the distance in, uh, with the technology and the state patrol helicopter.
22:26And where we are able to call him out to us.
22:28Yeah, it's absolutely way too soon to say that right now.
22:39That's where the investigation we have been just solely focused on the manhunt.
22:44And the goal was is to give, um, some calm to the situation of many individuals that were on the list that were worried about their safety.
22:51And this is a very dangerous individual for our community.
22:54And that's why so many resources and such a great collaboration came together to focus on removing him from society so that we can restore some sort of calm and bring some healing to our community and to our state.
23:05Now begins the hard work of looking at what the motive is.
23:09Looking at, um, putting this case together.
23:11And so that, that's yet to come.
23:12And on the list, um, what other, I know there are, uh, politicians from Wisconsin on the list.
23:20What other states were, had for people who were on the list?
23:23It was, uh, multiple states.
23:24I don't have the exhaustive list, but it was multiple states.
23:27Do you have some states that were on the list?
23:32There, there's a few, I, I don't want to say it because it won't be exhaustive.
23:35But, you know, um, Wisconsin, uh, Illinois, Michigan, some others, uh, that were on there.
23:41There was a variety in Nebraska, uh, Iowa, we've had contact.
23:44What I will tell you, and I will not get into any more specifics beyond that.
23:47We are in coordination with our federal partners and our fusion centers in those states to coordinate with local law enforcement and the FBI in those states.
23:56And, uh, state fusion centers that are there to be able to provide that information and, and notify those individuals that they were on that list.
24:05Are you concerned that there's other people out there that could have been working with them?
24:09We, the question is, are we concerned there's other people out there that could be working with them?
24:13We will fully explore that.
24:14I've said, uh, on this, we are, uh, relatively confident.
24:18We are confident that the violence that he committed and the murders he committed and the attempted murders that he conducted that activity alone.
24:27We will be exploring if there are any broader network.
24:30We have not uncovered any of that at this time, but that will be part of our investigation and we will fully explore that.
24:35So, thank you.
24:38We can go.
24:41Thank you, everyone.
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