Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison had a blunt message for the suspect being sought in the shootings of local politicians yesterday: “We’re not intimidated.”
Ellison said he is on the list found in a notebook belonging to Boelter that appeared to include the names of politicians the suspect was targeting.
“He murdered my dear friend Melissa Hortman, who was on that list, and shot down my other dear friend, John Hoffman, who was on that list along with their spouses,” Ellison said.
Ellison insisted the state is not backing down.
“This guy cannot intimidate us. He can have whatever kind of little list he wants,” he said. “We’re going to be safe. We’re going to be pragmatic. But we’re not going to stop standing up for justice.”
Ellison spoke about the “climate of political violence, where violence is looked at as an option to achieve a political goal,” that has been taking hold across the nation recently, with a number of lone-wolf attacks that appear to have had political motivations.
“We all must denounce it,” Ellison said, calling the shootings an “act of an evil individual who committed an evil, heinous, cowardly act.”