AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

After the biggest manhunt 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 Boelter, is also accused of shooting and wounding state Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette at their home.

Authorities say Boelter carried out the shootings while disguised as a police officer. Security footage shows Boelter wearing a mask and a police vest and a badge as he approached Hoffman’s front door in Champlin 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 Yvette eight times. She reportedly threw herself 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 suspect’s SUV in the driveway. The Minnesota Star Tribune reports, quote, “An officer watched as Boelter shot Mark Hortman through the front door,” and, “After an exchange of gunfire, Boelter retreated inside the house and escaped.” Police say they then found Melissa and Mark Hortman shot dead inside their home.

In Boelter’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, 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 Walz spoke Sunday night, denounced political violence.

GOV. TIM WALZ: 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 is the time for us to recommit to the core values of this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Governor Walz has also paid tribute to Melissa Hortman, who served as House speaker in Minnesota from 2019 'til earlier this year, her legislative victories including codifying the right to abortion in Minnesota's Constitution and providing free school lunches to children.

The alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, 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 House Speaker Melissa Hortman and state Senator John Hoffman.

Our deepest condolences to you and your community. Can you talk about who the House speaker was and what this means in your state and for this country?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: Melissa Hortman was an outstanding leader that was very loved and respected by many people, and what this means for us is that we lost a leader that was very important to us, not only to our communities, as a human being and as a leader who did impactful work, but also, obviously, as a mother, as a friend. And we are not only shocked, but incredibly saddened. Melissa Hortman has been defined as the most consequential leader 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, with the circumstances.

AMY GOODMAN: Your —

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: It is so hard to us [inaudible] — 

AMY GOODMAN: Your whole community has been terrorized for two days because the alleged assassin wasn’t caught for 43 hours. Can you tell us more about who the former House Speaker Melissa Hortman — about her legacy? We just said that she had pushed to codify abortion in the Minnesota Constitution, fought for free school lunches for children in need. Can you tell us more?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: Yes, I have a long list of her accomplishments as a leader, and I could go on, you know, 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 a group of leaders that is as diverse as the House DFL caucus is.

Melissa Hortman led a caucus of members that is the most diverse that we’ve ever had in the state of Minnesota. Thirty-two people of color and Indigenous people serve in that caucus, and we have 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 the leader to solve significant problems.

And it was that coalition that really allowed 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, they were able to move, you know, child tax credits. She was very proud to move family and medical paid leave in Minnesota. We have the strongest protections for transgender people in the state of Minnesota. We legalized recreational marijuana. We passed driver’s licenses for all people, regardless of their legal status. We did the largest increase for public education. We have free college for people who make under $80,000 in Minnesota. And I can go on. The list is — 

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me — 

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: — just incredibly long. We have —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me bring people Minnesota former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman in her own words, interviewed by CBS News Minnesota reporter Esme Murphy. In this clip, Hortman is discussing that new paid family leave program and paid sick leave mandate recently passed by the Legislature.

SPEAKER MELISSA HORTMAN: 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 Minnesotans, 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.

AMY GOODMAN: 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 Hoffmans, who were shot multiple times — her mother Yvette protected her — who saved so many by calling 911. You knew Hope — you know Hope. Can you talk about her significance in what she did?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: We are so proud. I am so proud of Hope. I have known Hope for many years, of course. You know, John was elected in 2012 to the Senate. I was elected in 2006, so I have known him his entire term. And she is the only daughter of this beautiful couple. And both John and Yvette are known for their, you know, beautiful spirit. Yvette is always posting something meaningful. She is a kindergarten teacher. 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 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 of our community who advocates 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 on 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. This is something that we really have to remember, and we will remember forever. But I just cannot tell you how important that was, obviously, and how reflective of who that family is, who they are, Yvette, John and, obviously, Hope.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk more about the culture of the Minnesota Legislature, very different from other places. It kind of reminded me of Vermont’s state Legislature, very bipartisan, very community-oriented and open. But also to talk about Vance Boelter, the alleged assassin, where they found in his fake police car a 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!, the congressmember, Democratic lawmakers across the board in Minnesota and abortion advocates. If you can talk about what this means?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: 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 Melissa Hortman are in terms of not only demonstrating how you really address significant issues, but how you bring people together 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 really experience what we are 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 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 2006, there were only six of us in the Senate and House, collectively. So, we have grown exponentially as a community in terms of really supporting and bringing people to power, electing people of color.

And I think what Melissa Hortman did incredibly well was to not only understand the power, the collective power, of communities that bring these 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 make very tough decisions on behalf of a state that is predominantly white, but experience significant, significant inequities that makes — puts them — puts us in the map as a complicated community?

We have some of the best outcomes for, you know, education, healthcare, housing, but yet we have the greatest disparities. So, when you separate communities of color from the larger population, we have high incidence of poverty, lack of housing, you know, some of the lowest graduation rates in the country. So, it’s a difficult problem to resolve. And Melissa Hortman 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 chairs of committees very, you know, soon in their careers 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.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about this hit list that we now have all heard about, I mean, about 70 legislators? Have you talked to people on that list, and what this means?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: We know of some of the people in the list, and it is difficult for me to really name the names. 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 outspoke 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 Walz and his presence nationwide, really educating people and inspiring people to do the right thing, to question what is happening around the country right now, those are leaders that, you know, we appreciate immensely, and we will continue to support in Minnesota, and they have a national name and impact and recognition. And so, some of the names that are in that list are people like them, who have 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, 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 bring, you know, their local elected officials to do hard work — hard work — because, you know, many people may know that 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 demands significant hours away from, days away from their families. And our rural members sometimes don’t see their families for weeks, because they have to come to the capital, 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 understand the sacrifice, the hard work that these leaders actually have to do on behalf of their local communities and the entire country.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, we refer to Melissa Hortman as the former House speaker, from 2019 to earlier this year. Can you explain why that changed?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: So, Melissa Hortman, something very unique happened in Minnesota in this election, which is that we, the Democrats, lost the control of the House, and we have a tight House. We have a 67-67 split in the Minnesota House, which makes it very difficult. And this is why it is just so hard to accept what happened with Melissa Hortman 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 bills that required a vote from one or the other in order to get the majority. And she was that vote that really allowed the state of Minnesota to come back, because we couldn’t complete the work in a regular session. It was so hard that they couldn’t complete the work, so they had to come to a special session. And the governor calls the special session. It was one day, but she was able to negotiate, really, 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 targeted by this criminal.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you tell us, 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 Boelter, 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.

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: 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 put thoughts and names. I think what I’m worried — I don’t know much about him, but I do hope that this investigation brings us more light into what we are experiencing in this country 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. White supremacy is very real. 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, that we go deeper into understanding what is going on.

What I know superficially is that this man did not have a job, but he had significant income. Where did he get the income to buy, you know, the car that he used that evening, all of the ammunition, all of these guns? How? How can these people have access to all of this expensive gear? And yet, nobody knows what he did for a living. Nobody knows what — where he worked and where he got his income. And so, I really hope that this investigation goes deeper into understanding, you know, how these networks are created, how they get the funding to do this, how they get these permits.

And obviously, I believe that we need less access to guns in our country. I think that we are experiencing 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 we are going to demand that we 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.

AMY GOODMAN: Interestingly, just looking at a piece 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.

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: That is new information. I didn’t know that. They have speculated a lot about his jobs, and they said he worked in a grocery store for some time. They also said that he had a company that never existed. It was registered as a company that was just not real. So — 

AMY GOODMAN: I think Al Jazeera says Boelter’s — 

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: — I really don’t know.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera says Boelter’s wife filed to create a company called Praetorian Guard Security Services LLC with the same address as the couple’s listed mailing address in Green Isle in Sibley County. And as we begin to wrap up, Sibley County, where he was caught by a massive multi-department police FBI operation, can you describe Sibley County, this rural county in Minnesota, to us?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: You know, Sibley County, like many other counties in Minnesota, you know, Minnesota — rural Minnesota is kind of isolated, in a way. And unfortunately, we are losing population in rural Minnesota. So, there is a significant, I think, concern in rural Minnesota about, you know, kind of young people leaving, leaving those areas. What that does is create, 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 difficult conversations with respect to funding for hospitals, that cannot continue to function in areas like Sibley County and other rural areas. So, we are experiencing economic decline and population decline in significant ways in rural Minnesota. I believe this is the case for many rural counties in the country.

So, I attribute some of that frustration and, really, political divide that exists today to those 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 is going on? Are we being represented? Are we receiving the benefit of what we see now, which is tremendous wealth in this country?” And people are angry. People are demanding better. People are demanding, you know, some of those benefits that are supposed to — they are supposed to receive, knowing that we live in the wealthiest nation of this planet.

And so, I think that is where we have to work together. Unfortunately, we have not done enough to come together as communities, rural communities, urban communities. We have a wealthy suburban community in the state of Minnesota. But Sibley County is one of those communities that has experienced, you know, harsh economic times and a decline in population. And so, 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.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we go, former Minnesota Senator, I wanted to ask you about the issue of immigration, ICE, Marines, National Guard going through the streets of Los Angeles, not to mention ICE raids throughout the country. I wanted to ask you, when you have Senator — when you have Governor Walz talking about political violence, about just what happened in the last few days, where you have a Latino senior senator from California, Padilla, being taken down at a news conference that’s held by the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, 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.

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: Well, this is very personal for me. 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, 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, to see the secretary taking pictures, you know, in El Salvador in front of prisoners and to really make statements such as, “We are liberating cities like Los Angeles from this liberal agenda,” is very problematic and, I think, is creating exactly what we see right now. I believe very strongly that 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, a young woman who is an artist, beloved woman whose two brothers actually are Marines, who served this country, her two older brothers. And she was detained because she was — she attended, really, a confusing moment in Minneapolis, where we believed that we had a raid. It was not a raid. It was really an arrest. And she put herself in front of many people that she thought were going to be arrested. She’s, I believe, 25. And later on, she was arrested in front of her friends. She’s — 

AMY GOODMAN: Talking about Isabel Lopez?

PATRICIA TORRES RAY: — no longer — Isabel Lopez, yes, yes. I know her father very well, an entrepreneur who worked very closely with me years ago to develop a corridor of opportunity in St. Paul, a very well-known entrepreneur.

So, it is very tragic, what is happening around the nation. And 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 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 face, that we have to address, you know, issues with criminals, and that, you know, that is not something that we oppose. But that’s not what this administration is doing. They are doing more than that. They are intimidating communities around the country and apprehending leaders. I mean, what happened with Senator Padilla was absolutely outrageous. And the secretary did nothing. Her staff did nothing. You know, she had not issued a statement, an apology. That’s just appalling to me.

AMY GOODMAN: 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 and the shooting of state Senator Hoffman and his wife by a man who was posing as a police officer, and then the police putting out, so that people 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. 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 plainclothes officers who are ICE. 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, Patricia Torres Ray.

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 Isabel Lopez was arrested, all of the friends, the people who were around her, said, “Show us your ID.” That is a minimum. That’s a minimum. How could — if you’re arresting someone, you need to show your ID. There is not a problem. You know, you need to identify yourself and let us know.

So, 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 cannot — 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 demand, that these people identify themselves, tell you who they are 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 we lost that. We are losing this, and we just need to demand better. It is time for us to really demand that we demand these basic protections of our democracy. Those are basic protections in this democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Patricia Torres Ray, 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 assailant, along with his wife Yvette. They are recovering in the hospital. To see Part 1 of our discussion, go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.