this is Democracy Now i’m Amy Goodman after the biggest man hunt in Minnesota history authorities have detained a

57-year-old man accused of assassinating former Minnesota Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband

in their home early Saturday the suspect Vance Belter is also accused of shooting and wounding state senator John Hoffman

and his wife Avette at their home authorities say Belter carried out the shootings while disguised as a police

officer security footage shows Belter wearing a mask and a police vest and a badge as he approached Hoffman’s front

door in Champlain with a flashlight and a gun authorities say they were alerted to the attacks by a 911 call made after

the initial attack on Hoffman and his wife by their daughter Hope who was at home with her parents hoffman was shot

nine times his wife Avette eight times she reportedly threw herself on in front of her daughter Hope to shield her hope

was not shot after police learned the shooting victim was a state legislator they said they sent officers to the

nearby home of Senator Hortman in Brooklyn Park and when they arrived around 3:35 a.m they found the suspect’s

fu SUV in the driveway the Minnesota Star Tribune reports quote “An officer

watched as Belter shot Mark Hortman through the front door and after an exchange of gunfire Belter retreated

inside the house and escaped.” Police say they then found Melissa and Mark Hortman shot dead inside their home in

Belter’s car police found three AK-47 assault rifles a 9mm handgun a hit list

written by the gunman that contained the names of about 70 people including prominent Democratic lawmakers and

abortion providers and advocates uh naming Planned Parenthood flyers for Saturday’s No Kings rallies were also

found this prompted many organizers in Minnesota to cancel their protests minnesota Governor Tim Walls spoke

Sunday night denounced political violence a moment in this country where we watch

violence erupt this cannot be the norm it cannot be the

way that we deal with our political differences now’s the time for us to recommmit

to the core values of this country governor Walls has also paid tribute to Melissa Hortman who served as House

Speaker in Minnesota from 2019 till earlier this year her legislative victories including cottifying the right

to abortion in Minnesota’s Constitution and providing free school lunches to children the alleged gunman Vance Belter

is reportedly a conservative evangelical Christian who’s posted on social media that he’s strongly against abortion and

LGBTQ rights for more we’re joined in Minneapolis by Patricia Torres Ray who

is a former Minnesota State Senator who worked closely with Minnesota uh House Speaker Melissa Hortman and State

Senator John Hoffman our deepest condolences to you and your community um

can you talk about who the House Speaker was and what this means in your state

and for this country melissa Hortman was an outstanding

leader that was very loved and respected by many people and what this means for

us is that uh we lost a leader uh that was very important to us uh not only to

our communities as a as a human being and as a leader who did impactful work

uh but also obviously as a mother as a friend and we are not only shocked but

incredibly saddened um Elisa Horman uh has been defined as the most

consequential leader uh of the House in Minnesota history and I agree with that

statement i think she has been the most consequential leader in our community so

we are profoundly sad and shocked really uh with the

circumstances so hard to us your whole community has been terrorized for 2 days

um because uh the alleged assassin wasn’t caught for 43 hours um can you

tell us more about who uh the former House Speaker Melissa Hortman about her

legacy uh we just said that she she had pushed to cottify abortion in the

Minnesota Constitution uh fought for free school lunches for children in need can you tell us more

yes uh I I have a long list of her accomplishments uh as a leader and I

could go on you know to to name a few of them but I also want to talk a little bit about her leadership style because I

believe that that is really the most important thing that we need to review especially in these times when it is

difficult to galvanize uh a group of leaders that is as diverse as the House

uh DFL caucus is melissa Hortman led a caucus of uh members that is the most

diverse that we’ve ever had in the state of Minnesota 32 people of color and

indigenous people serve in that caucus and we have uh very active outstanding

transgender members so what Melissa Hortman was able to do in Minnesota is

really galvanize her caucus and really appoint these leaders to serve in a

collaborative collective manner and what we saw and what I saw as a Latina woman

was for the first time in the state of Minnesota people of color in positions of power working with a leader to solve

significant problems and it was that coalition that really allow her to move

significant policy that we have not been able to do in a progressive state as the

state of Minnesota where we have the largest disparities in the country so uh

we they were able to move you know child tax credits uh she was very proud to uh

move uh family and medical paid leave in Minnesota we have the strongest

protections for transgender people in the state of Minnesota we legalize um

recreational marijuana we passed driver’s licenses for all people regardless of their legal status uh we

did the largest increase for public education uh we have free college for people who um make under $80,000 in

Minnesota and I can go on the the list is just incredibly long with Let me

bring people Minnesota former state um house speaker Melissa Hortman in her own

words interviewed by CBS News Minnesota reporter Esme Murphy in this clip Port Hortman’s discussing that new fam paid

family leave program and paid sick leave mandate recently passed by the legislature

while a lot of white collar workers have this benefit or highly compensated people already have this benefit most

workers in the state don’t have the ability to take paid time off when somebody in their family has cancer and

needs to be taken care of a lot of u motans when a member of their family is sick right now they have to choose

between staying at home and taking care of their loved one and not being able to pay their mortgage or going to work and

having their loved one not get the care that they need but January 1st next year that all changes uh that’s the former

House Speaker Melissa Hortman earlier this year so painful to see her voice

hear her voice and it was Hope the daughter of the Hoffman’s who were shot

multiple times her mother protected her who saved so many by calling 911

um you knew Hope can you know Hope can you talk about um her significance in

what she did we are so proud i am so proud of Hope i have known Hope for many

years of course um you know John was elected in 2012 to the Senate i was

elected in 2006 i have known him his entire term and she is the only daughter

of this beautiful couple and both John and Iette are known for their you know

beautiful spirit uh Iette is always posting something meaningful she is a

kindergarten teacher uh she always talks about the stories you know beautiful

funny stories about her students so this is a family that is very close very

tight and very uh beautiful spirit that you’re able to see that how they

transmit this in everything they do they volunteer for a lot of issues and their daughter is really an active member um

of our community who advocates uh with very strong spirit on behalf of people

with disabilities and so we know her for that advocacy

and to think that in that moment of profound pain can you imagine to be in

that moment with your parents in the floor shot and having the courage to get

on the phone and say “Do something call 911.”

I am not surprised that she had the courage to do this but I am so moved by

her action because she prevented a lot of assassinations that evening she is

the one who did that and it was because she was able to in that moment of

courage with that profound pain that she was experiencing to do the right thing

uh this is something that we really have to remember and we will remember forever but I I just cannot tell you how

important that was obviously and how reflective of who that family is who

they are evette John and obviously Hope talk more about the culture of the

Minnesota legislature very different from other places it kind of reminded me of Vermont state legislature um very

bipartisan um uh very uh communityoriented and open um but also

to talk about Vance Belter the alleged assassin where they found in his fake

police car uh hit list that included a whole roster of Democratic legislators

everyone from the attorney general of Minnesota apparently Keith Ellison to

Ilhan Omar who we just interviewed on Democracy Now uh the Congress member um

Democratic lawmakers across the board in Minnesota and abortion advocates if you

can talk about what this means

we’re very worried obviously like the rest of the nation about the polarization the political polarization

that we experience right now and I think that it is important to really reflect

about how important leaders like uh Melissa Horman are in terms of not only

demonstrating how you really address significant issues but how you bring people together uh collectively to

understand the issues to act on these issues with courage and I think this is why it is just so hard for some of us to

to really experience what we are experience uh experiencing right now and particularly to lose members that have

really have such profound impact in our community as I said before in the interview we have you know the most

diverse uh Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives in Minnesota 32

members that are people of color and indigenous that is totally unprecedented

to give you an example when I was elected in 20 2006 there were only six

of us uh in the Senate and House collectively so we have uh grown

exponentially as a community in terms of uh really supporting and bringing people

uh to power electing people of color and I think what Melissa Horman did incredibly well was to not only

understand the power the collective power of communities that bring these uh

leaders to the table but understand how do you govern with them you know how do you bring them to an understanding that

they need to um make very tough decisions on behalf of a of a state that

is uh predominantly white but experience significant significant inequities that

makes uh puts them puts us in the map as a as a complicated community we have

some of the best outcomes um for um you know education health care

housing um but yet we have the greatest disparity so when you separate uh

communities of color from the larger population we have high incidents of

poverty uh lack of housing um you know uh some of the uh lowest graduation

rates in the country so it’s a it’s a difficult problem to resolve

and Melissa Horman uh really understood that and tried to bring those people who

were elected from those communities and mentor them and put them in positions of power to make decisions many became uh

chairs of committees uh very um you know soon in their careers uh to really have

an impact and work with her and the rest of the state of Minnesota to pass the legislation that we passed recently

and can you talk about this hit list that we now have all heard about i mean

about 70 uh legislators have you talked to people on that list

and what this means we know of some of the people in the

list and it is difficult for me to really name the names uh I do not

believe that we should do that especially because these are some of the leaders that we most appreciate in the

state of Minnesota because of their courage so I would like to rather than

identifying them as the people in the list talk about you know how profound

their impact is in our community so when we talk about you know Representative

Ilhan Omar and how outspoken she is and how important her voice is in Congress

when we talk about Attorney General Keith Ellison and the amount of work that he has done with other attorney

generals with other governors when we talk about Governor Waltz and his uh

presence nationwide really educating people and inspiring people to to do the

right thing to question you know what is happening around the country right now uh those are leaders that you know we we

appreciate immensely and we will continue to support in Minnesota and they have a national uh name and impact

and recognition and so uh some of the names uh that are in that list are

people like them who have you know gained that recognition because of the hard work that they do you know in a

political moment that is difficult to do that work and so um I I hope that the

nation continues to talk about that about what these leaders have to do in

order to bring our nation together and uh bring you know their local um elected

officials to do hard work hard work because um you know many people may know

that um local elected officials make very little money in Minnesota they only make $50,000 so it’s getting harder and

harder to really recruit people to do work that you know demands uh significant hours uh away from days away

from their families and our rural members uh sometimes don’t see their families for weeks because they have to

come to the capitol and they live in the cities they live in St paul very hard to do this work today and so we as a nation

really need to come back to uh understand the sacrifice uh the hard

work that these leaders actually have to do on behalf of their local communities and the entire country

now we referred to Melissa Hortman as the former House Speaker from 2019 to

earlier this year can you explain why that changed

so uh Melissa Horman uh something very unique happened in Minnesota in this

election which is that we uh the Democrats lost the control of the House and we have a tight house we have a 6767

um split in the Minnesota House which makes it very difficult and and this is

why it is just so hard to accept what happened with uh Melissa Hordman and why

she was targeted because of all the political moments that she experienced

and all the hard work that she had to do this specific legislative session she

had to build consensus with Republicans and she was the only vote in many uh

bills that required a vote from from from one or the other in order to get

the majority and and she was that vote that really allowed the state of

Minnesota to come back because we couldn’t complete the work in uh regular

session it was so hard that they couldn’t complete the work so they had to come to special session and the

governor calls the special session it was one day but she was able to negotiate really um all of the bills and

put together the budget for the state of Minnesota so we don’t have to shut down state government so she was the person

who really was able to make that happen for the state of Minnesota and yet she’s

the person that was target by targeted by this criminal and can you tell us uh former Minnesota

state senator Patricia Torres Ray what you know at this point I’m sure it’s

just coming out in the media about Vance Belter um who’s about to be charged with

murder and attempted murder who had these documents the hit list we are

beginning to learn what his positions were may have even had a manifesto I don’t know much about him and what we

do know is that this was not a manifesto it was more a document where he you know kind of wrote ideas and and put thoughts

and and names i think what I’m wor I don’t know much about him but I do hope that this

investigation brings us uh more light into what we are experiencing in this country uh in terms of finding these men

and really I don’t know where these investigations actually go after you

know we interview them but we don’t act on what we learn from them and I think

we have a significant problem in this country um white supremacy is very real

uh terrorism is very real and what I hope comes out of this investigation

this horrific event and this horrific experience that we have in Minnesota is

that we demand better of these investigations uh that we go deeper into understanding what is going on uh what I

know superficially is that this man did not have a job but did he had significant income

uh where where did he get the income to buy you know the car that he used that evening uh all of the ammunition all of

these guns uh h how can these people have access to all of these expensive

gear and yet nobody knows what he did for a living nobody knows what um where

he worked and where he got his income and so I I really hope that this

investigation goes deeper into understanding you know how these networks are created um how they get the

funding to do this how they get these permits um and obviously I believe that

we need less access to guns in our country i I I think that we we are

experienced these horrific events time and time again in every state of the country and we’re doing very little

about it and it is time that we act to protect our communities to protect our leaders our kids around the country so

it’s time so I don’t know much about him but I know that um that we are going to

demand that we um go deeper into investigating who these people are and

what we need to do in order to prevent these horrific experiences from

happening again to families around our state and the country

interestingly just looking at a piece uh in the New York Times it said he worked

six days a week for two funeral service companies in the Minneapolis area at one

of the companies he sometimes helped to remove bodies from crime scenes and

would work with police officers and death investigators

that is new information i didn’t know that they they have speculated a lot

about his jobs and they said he worked in a grocery store for some time um they

also said that he he had a company that never existed it was uh registered as a

um um company that that was just not not real i think El Jazer says Belter

El Jazer says Belter’s wife filed to create a company called Ptorian Guard

Security Services LLC with the same address as the couple’s listed mailing

address in Green Isle in Sibi County and as we begin to wrap up Sibi County where

he was caught um by a massive multi-dep department uh police FBI operation can

you describe Sibi County this rural county in Minnesota to us

you know uh Sibly County like many other counties uh in Minnesota uh you know

Minnesota rural Minnesota is kind of isolated in a in a way and uh

unfortunately we are losing population in rural Minnesota so there is a a

significant I think uh concern in rural Minnesota about you know kind of young

people leaving living those areas um what that does is uh create uh really

devastation in those communities we have no workers we have no economic growth

unfortunately in some of these areas we are having they are having to close schools right now we are in one of the

most um difficult conversations with respect to um funding for hospitals that

cannot continue to function in areas like Cibi County and other rural areas

so we are experienc uh economic decline and population decline in significant

ways in rural Minnesota i I believe this is the the case for uh many rural uh

counties in the country so I I attribute some of that you know frustration and

and really political divide that exists today to those um significant problems

that we face you know when you have when you experience these kind of issues in your local community people are

beginning to ask you know what what is going on are people are we being represented are we receiving the benefit

of uh what we see now which is tremendous wealth uh in this country and

and people are angry people are demanding better people are demanding uh

you know some of those uh um benefits that are supposed to uh they are

supposed to receive knowing that we live in the wealthiest nation uh of of this

planet and so I think that is where um we have to work together unfortunately

we have not done enough uh to come together as communities rural communities urban communities we have a

wealthy suburban community in the state of Minnesota but Sibly County is one of

those communities that is experienced you know harsh economic times and uh decline in population and so we we have

to address those issues the divide and the inequality that exists in Minnesota is significant just like it is in the

rest of the country before we go uh former uh Minnesota senator I wanted to

ask you about the issue of immigration um ICE Marines National Guard uh going

through the streets of Los Angeles not to mention ICE raids throughout the country um I wanted to ask you when you

have Senator when you have Governor Walls talking about political violence

about just what happened the last few days where you have a Latino

senior senator from California uh Padilla uh being taken down at a news

conference that’s held by the Secretary of Homeland Security Christy Gnome

brought to his knees as he attempted to ask her a question about the crackdown i

wanted to ask you about what’s happening in Minnesota well this is very personal for me uh I

am an immigrant i came to this country about 40 years ago was the first Latina

elected to the Minnesota Senate in Minnesota and I am very proud of my background uh

have worked very closely with the immigrant community here in Minnesota and around the country what we are

experiencing now is totally unprecedented and for me uh to see the

secretary taking pictures you know in El Salvador um in front of prisoners and to

really um make statements such as we are liberating um cities like um Los Angeles uh from

this liberal agenda is very problematic and I think is uh is creating exactly

what we see right now uh I I believe very strongly that um she is really

inspiring these people to do what they are doing right now these criminals

and so in Minnesota we experienced very recently the arrest of a young poet um a

young woman who is an artist beloved woman whose two brothers uh are actually

actually are Marines uh who serve this country her two older brothers and she

was detained because she was um she attended um really a confusing moment in

Minneapolis where uh we believe that we had a raid it was not a raid it was a it

was a really an arrest and she put herself in front of many people that uh

she thought were going to be arrested um she’s I believe 25 and uh later on she

was arrested in front of her friends uh she’s talking about Isabelle Lopez no

long Isabel Lopez yes yes i I know her

father very well a person entrepreneur who worked uh very closely with me years

ago to develop a a corridor of opportunity in St paul uh very well-known um entrepreneur so it is uh

very tragic what is happening around the nation and I um I I believe that this is

going to backfire on this administration i think you know like I said before I think people are realizing that we need

to work together we’re understanding the power of the immigrant community in this country and and I believe that we the

immigrant community as well as the community as a whole understand that yeah we need to address some of these

drug problems that we that we face that we have to address you know issues uh uh

with criminals and that you know that that that is not something that we oppose but that’s not what this

administration is doing they are doing more than that uh they are intimidating communities around the country and

apprehending leaders i mean what happened with Senator Pada was absolutely outrageous and the

secretary did nothing her staff did nothing uh you know she she had not issued an a statement an apology that’s

just appalling to me um yeah I was talking with a young immigrant at the No Kings protest as we

were talking about the horror that took place in your state the assassination of the former House Speaker um and the

shooting of uh State Senator Hoffman and his wife um by a man who was posing as a

police officer and then the police putting out so that people um would could figure out how to

make sense of things that no police officer will be operating alone right if

you see a police officer alone when they were looking for him it could be him because he was dressed as a police

officer and the way you distinguish between the impersonator and the real

police officers is that they would always be working in twos um and this

young immigrant was talking about how on the one hand you have this guy impersonating a police officer and on

the other hand like in the case of Isabel Lopez you have these plain closed officers who are ICE uh you have no idea

who they are if in fact they’re law enforcement and in unmarked cars trying

to deal with all of this uh Patricia Torres Ray

absolutely and this is what is so terrifying and when you see the reaction

of people in you know they are rightly so how can it be that these individuals

come to your house pull you out of your house masked we don’t know who they are

and they tell you you know we have a video thank goodness people now are videotaping everything we do so now we

have a record when Isabelle Lopez was uh arrested

all of the friends the people who were around her there show us your ID that is a minimum that’s the minimum how could

if you’re arresting someone you need to show your ID there there is not a problem you know you need to identify

yourself and and let us know so what what have we come to in this democracy

in the United States where we have masked individuals coming to your house arresting people

and they don’t even have to tell you who they are and why are they doing this to us we can not we should not accept this

as a nation no one no one immigrants no immigrants no one should accept that it

is just the minimum right that you have really to to demand

that these people identify themselves tell you who they are and this and tell

you why they are arresting you that should be on the record and it’s common practice it has been common practice in

this country and and we lost that we we we’re losing this and and we just need

to demand better it is time for us to really demand that we

demand these basic protections of our democracy though those are basic protections in this democracy patricia

Torres Ree thank you so much for being with us former Minnesota state senator

worked with the House Speaker Melissa Hortman who was assassinated along with

her husband Mark and worked with state senator John Hoffman who was shot

multiple times by the same asalent along with his wife Ivet they are recovering

in the hospital to see part one of our discussion go to democracynow.org

i’m Amy Goodman thanks so much for joining us thanks for watching Democracy Now on YouTube subscribe to the channel

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