Police and FBI arrest suspect in murder of Congresswoman Melissa Hortman

Police and the FBI have arrested the prime suspect in the murder of Democratic Congresswoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in Brooklyn Park, near Minneapolis.

The suspect, identified as Vance Luther Boelter, was arrested in the woods of rural Minnesota, where he had reportedly been held for the past two days while the search was ongoing, U.S. authorities reported.

Reward for Vance Luther Boelter

Authorities were offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the capture of Vance Boelter, accused of fatally shooting Melissa Hortman and her husband on Saturday and seriously wounding State Senator John Hoffman and his partner in two Minneapolis suburbs.

The double attack has shocked the political class across the country, at a time of heightened tension over the policies of Republican President Donald Trump.

"More than 100 law enforcement officers and numerous SWAT teams... are in the area searching for him," Drew Evans, chief of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said at a news conference Sunday night.

After the discovery of a vehicle, the investigation focused on Sibley County, a rural area located an hour southwest of the Minneapolis area where the murders occurred.

Evans said it was not yet clear whether Boelter, 57, was fleeing on foot. When asked if the man might be receiving assistance, the official said, "All options are on the table."

Early Saturday morning, Boelter allegedly went to the homes of Hoffman and Hortman. In a photo shared by authorities, he appears disguised in a police uniform and what appears to be a latex mask, while ringing a doorbell.

Hortman's wife, Yvette, said Sunday that her husband was "enduring a lot of surgeries" after the attack, but that "every hour he is closer to being out of danger," according to a text message shared on X by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

The legislator was shot nine times and his partner eight times, according to the message.

"Manifest"

Boelter is listed on the website of the private security firm Praetorian Guards Security Services as the company's patrol director.

David Carlson, Boelter's roommate, told local television station KARE that before the attacks, he received a text message from the fugitive informing him that he would be gone for a while and might die soon.

The suspect fled on foot after an exchange of gunfire with police near Hortman's residence, where he left a vehicle.

Inside, a notebook was found with the names of other lawmakers and potential targets, which Evans said Sunday was not a "traditional manifesto."

"I'm concerned for all of our political leaders and political organizations," Senator Klobuchar said earlier.

"There was a connection to abortion because of the groups" listed—including abortion clinics, according to media reports—found in the suspect's vehicle, he added in an interview with NBC.

Hortman, a 55-year-old mother of two, served as speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives and made abortion rights her top priority.

"Reduce tension"

The United States is deeply politically divided as Trump begins his second term, pursuing hardline policies and routinely insulting his opponents.

A survivor of an assassination attempt during a campaign rally last July in Pennsylvania, the tycoon condemned the attacks but used the tragedy to take a swipe at Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in the November presidential election.

Asked Sunday morning about the attacks and whether he intended to speak with Walz, he replied: "It's terrible. I think he's a very bad governor, completely incompetent. But I could call him, just like I could call other people."

Walz previously ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in what "appears to be an act of targeted political violence" in an increasingly fractured country.

Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, who was attacked by a neighbor in 2017, told NBC on Sunday that "nothing brings us closer than mourning another politician, whether Democrat or Republican."

(With information from The Wall Street Journal and AFP)