Two Minnesota lawmakers have been shot in their separate homes.
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One of the lawmakers – Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman – has died, as has her husband, Mark, the state’s governor, Tim Walz, confirmed at a press conference on Saturday. He said the shooting “appears to be a politically motivated assassination”.
The gunman is still at large, law enforcement said on Saturday, and the city of Brooklyn Park still on a shelter-in-place order. The shooter was impersonating a police officer, dressed in a uniform that would appear to be real to most people, police said.
“They did drive a vehicle that looked exactly like an SUV squad car,” Brooklyn Park’s police chief, Mark Bruley, said at a press conference. “It was equipped with lights, emergency lights, that looked exactly like a police vehicle, and yes, they were wearing a vest with taser, other equipment, a badge very similar to mine, that no question, if they were in this room, you would assume that they are a police officer.”
The man had a list of other lawmakers and officials in the vehicle police searched, and alerts were sent out to take action and provide security to others, Bruley said.
“We’re here today because an unspeakable tragedy has unfolded in Minnesota,” Walz said. “My good friend and colleague, Speaker Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed early this morning in what appears to be a politically motivated assassination. Our state lost a great leader, and I lost the dearest of friends.”
He added that Hortman was “someone who served the people of Minnesota with grace, compassion, humor and a sense of service. She was a formidable public servant, a fixture and a giant in Minnesota. She woke up every day determined to make this state a better place. She is irreplaceable.”
Democratic state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were both shot multiple times and are out of surgery, and Walz said he was “cautiously optimistic” both will survive.
“This was an act of targeted political violence,” Walz said.
Walz said in a statement on Saturday morning that he was briefed on the “ongoing situation” in the suburbs of Champlin and Brooklyn Park, both of which are in the Minneapolis metropolitan area.
The shootings took place at a time when political violence has become more commonplace in the US, though the vast majority of Americans do not support it, according to a University of Chicago survey.
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