More than one hundred police officers sought for two days to shoot two legislators from the state of Minnesota and their spouses. They finally captured him on Sunday night, and the persecution ended when he crammed to the agents who had tracked him to a field on the outskirts of Minneapolis.
The suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, had a day and a half fleeing when the investigators found their car and their cap on Sunday afternoon in a remote section of the Sibley County road, a mostly rural area to the southwest of Minneapolis, at a distance of an hour by car from the places of the attempted at dawn on Saturday.
Dozens of police officers and about 20 SWAT teams had been deployed throughout the county during the weekend, in what the authorities called the greatest persecution of the state’s history.
The search zone was reduced when an agent reported that he had seen a person who believed he was the suspect in a nearby forest, said Elliot Faust, a Brooklyn Park police deputy chief, Minnesota, Minnesota, at a press conference held on Sunday night. A resident also said he had seen Boelter in a phototrampe camera, Faust said.
The Swat team agents confirmed that an image of the phototrampeo camera showed the suspect. They established a perimeter of about two and a half square kilometers in the area and deployed drones and police dogs, Faust said.
The agents located Boelter and used a drone to follow him from above as he moved to cats between thick shrubs, Faust said. They headed towards him and, although they were armed, they did not use the force to stop him, the agents said. They captured him not far from the house outside Green isle, Minnesota, where he lived with his wife and children.
In a provisional command center in a nearby parking lot, the agents congratulated each other after the end of the persecution.
Ramsey County Sheriff, Minnesota, Bob Fletcher, posted a photo on Facebook in which Boelter standing in a field while they stopped. The photo seemed altered, with the faces of the dark agents.
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Although the prosecution lasted almost two days and had the State in suspense, Drew Evans, Superintendent of the Minnesota Criminal Apprehension Office, said it could have lasted even more if it had not been for the rapid performance of the Brooklyn Park police officers, who responded early on Saturday to a report of a shooting at the residence of the state senator John A. Hoffman. The agents went preventively to the house of the representative Melissa Hortman to verify how they were, and found Boelter there.
“If that had not happened,” Superintendent Evans said on Sunday, “I have full confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.”
“If that had not happened,” Superintendent Evans said on Sunday, “I have full confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.”
When the police arrived at Hortman’s house, the suspect opened fire immediately against the agents, he said. The agents returned the fire, and the man escaped on foot through the back door of the house towards a golf course, which triggered the persecution.