| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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We're on a mission to make small-town America bigger than anyone ever dreamed. | |
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| MediaCom supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Next, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and local officials provide an update at a news conference regarding the shooting of two state lawmakers and their spouses. | ||
| Thank you for being here. | ||
| In a moment, you'll hear from law enforcement officials who will share with you what they can as up-to-minute update on the situation here in Minnesota. | ||
| You're going to be joined by Commissioner Bob Jacobson, BCA Superintendent Drew Evans, State Patrol Colonel Christina Bogojevich, Champlain Park Police Chief Snyder, and Brooklyn Pars Police Chief Mark Brully, as well as the mayor of Brooklyn Park. | ||
| We're here today because an unspeakable tragedy has unfolded in Minnesota. | ||
| My good friend and colleague, Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, were shot and killed early this morning in what appears to be a politically motivated assassination. | ||
| Our state lost a great leader and I lost a dearest of friends. | ||
| Speaker Hortman was someone who served the people of Minnesota with grace, compassion, humor, and a sense of service. | ||
| She was a formidable public servant, a fixture and a giant in Minnesota. | ||
| She woke up every day determined to make this state a better place. | ||
| She is irreplaceable and we've been missed by so many. | ||
| Minnesota's thoughts and prayers are with her family, her loved ones, her children, and her parents. | ||
| My prayers also go out to State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette, who were each shot multiple times. | ||
| The Hoffmans are out of surgery at this time and receiving care, and we are cautiously optimistic they will survive this assassination attempt. | ||
| This was an act of targeted political violence. | ||
| Peaceful discourse is the foundation of our democracy. | ||
| We don't settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint. | ||
| In the state of Minnesota, and as recently as last week, in the most closely divided state legislature in the country, we sat down, we worked things out, we debated, we shook hands and compromised, and we served the state of Minnesota together. | ||
| We've proved that it's possible, even in these politically charged times, to find compromise and adhere to the principles of democracy and civil discourse. | ||
| We must all, Minnesota and across the country, stand against all forms of political violence. | ||
| At this precipice moment we're on, this tragic act here in Minnesota should serve as a reminder to all of us. | ||
| The democracy and the debates in the halls of Congress, in state houses, in school boards, is a way to settle our differences peacefully and move society to a better place. | ||
| We're collaborating with all local, state, and federal agencies on a full investigation. | ||
| We're committed to keeping Minnesotans informed as the situation continues. | ||
| I assure you that those held, those responsible for this will be held accountable. | ||
| And each and every one of us are committed to making sure that a tragedy like this never repeats itself in Minnesota or across this country. | ||
| I'd now like to turn it over to my public safety team to fill you in on the specifics of this ongoing investigation. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Governor, and thank you, everyone, for being here today. | ||
| My name is Drew Evans, and I'm the superintendent at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. | ||
| I want to start by just expressing our deepest sympathies to the communities, the family, the friends, and everybody that cared about the individuals that were gunned down today. | ||
| When we have individuals like this and our political leadership, they're not only political leaders, but they're members of the community, well-known members of the community, that the tragedy in a situation like this is not only for them, their friends and families, but us collectively, the communities they represent, us as the state of Minnesota as a whole. | ||
| About 2:00 a.m. this morning, there was an original call in the city of Champlain where there was an individual that had shot Senator Hoffman and his wife. | ||
| Police responded to that location. | ||
| They were dealing with that and working through that process overnight. | ||
| And then later on, at approximately 3:35, another call came in when it was officers proactively checking because they knew of the incident that occurred. | ||
| And they were going to check on Speaker Hortman at that time, at which time Brooklyn Park police officers encountered the individual who immediately fired at them and they exchanged gunfire and then the individual was able to escape during that exchange of gunfire. | ||
| At the residence in Champlain, there were life-saving measures that were provided there. | ||
| Both individuals were transported, as was previously noted, and they both received surgeries for their injuries at the hospital. | ||
| And their conditions are at this time. | ||
| Both those individuals, Senator Hoffman and his wife, are both alive at this time, but they suffered gunshot wounds and are obviously in a difficult situation. | ||
| But we're cautiously optimistic that they will continue to improve. | ||
| At this time, it is a very active scene still, as you've seen. | ||
| The Brooklyn Park Police Department, along with other members, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, State Patrol, FBI, BC, and many others, are actively engaged in a manhunt for the individual that we believe is responsible for this. | ||
| And so we'll be sharing the identity with those individuals as this progresses. | ||
| But I'm going to caution you. | ||
| I know there's going to be a ton of interest in this. | ||
| We're not at the position we can do that as we're actively searching for that individual. | ||
| Right now, just as noted, we have teams. | ||
| Hennepin County Sheriff's Office and Champlain are working at the scene there that occurred there. | ||
| And then we are also, as we're stabilizing this, between Brooklyn Park, working on the homicide investigation with Brooklyn Park Police, the BCA, FBI is assisting there as well, and we'll be conducting a crime scene investigation there. | ||
| And then the individuals that were killed will be doing autopsies of those individuals to determine the extent of their injuries and how they passed away. | ||
| But it was from gunshot wounds. | ||
| At this time, I will answer questions after Commissioner of Public Safety Bob Jacobson speaks, but we'll be happy to take a few questions. | ||
| Thank you, Superintendent Evans. | ||
| My name is Bob Jacobson. | ||
| It's my honor to serve as the Commissioner of Public Safety for the state of Minnesota. | ||
| This is a dark day today for Minnesota and for democracy, but we will not allow fear or violence to define who we are or how we move forward. | ||
| We will stand together and we will stand strong. | ||
| Our hearts, of course, go out to the victims, their families, their colleagues at the Capitol, and to the communities that they serve with dedication and with integrity. | ||
| These are our public servants, leaders who committed their lives to improving the lives of others, and they were targeted in a violent and cowardly way. | ||
| The suspect exploited the trust of our uniforms that our uniforms are meant to represent. | ||
| That betrayal is deeply disturbing to those of us who wear the badge with honor and responsibility. | ||
| We want to reassure the public that there is increased security in place for elected officials and others who may be at risk. | ||
| If you see anything suspicious, especially involving individuals impersonating law enforcement, please report it immediately by calling 911 or your local police department. | ||
| With that, I'll step back and we will be available for any questions. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| One reminder, please, as you address your first questions, please don't forget to introduce yourselves, your media organization, and to the officials answering any questions, please don't forget to repeat this question. | ||
| Walker RC. | ||
| So, can you say one more time? | ||
| So, you were just going to proactively check on Speaker of Mary's Portman and then gaze there and encounter the gunman or someone with a gun and exchange gunfire. | ||
| Can you just go over that one more time, please? | ||
| I can. | ||
| Good morning, Police Chief Mark Rule, Brooklyn Park Police Department. | ||
| The question is: How did we get to Representative Hortman's house? | ||
| And it was proactively or not. | ||
| The circumstances unfolded in Brooklyn Park this morning: we assisted the Champlain Police Department on a shooting. | ||
| That shooting was made aware by one of our sergeants that it was at Senator Hoffman's home. | ||
| In hearing that, that very intuitive sergeant asked our officers to go check on Melissa Hortman's home, the representative that lives in our community, just proactively as due diligence to swing by. | ||
| That police officer and his partner pulled down the street when they arrived at Melissa's house. | ||
| They noticed that there was a police vehicle in the driveway with the lights, emergency lights on, and what appeared to be a police officer at the door coming out of the house. | ||
| When our officers confronted them, the individual immediately fired upon the officers who exchanged gunfire, and the suspect retreated back into the home. | ||
| Was this a former repository? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Was this an actual police officer or impersonating the police officer? | |
| Yes, the question is: was it a real person or a person personating impersonating that police officer? | ||
| It was not a real police officer. | ||
| This is somebody that clearly had been impersonating a police officer, again, using the trust of this badge and this uniform to manipulate their way into the home. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So, Speaker of the Janet Torrell Parallel, the person not only was wearing the badge, wasn't as a police officer when they approached their victims, they had a car with license signs. | |
| Yes, the question is: what kind of vehicle, how were they dressed? | ||
| They did drive a vehicle that looked exactly like an SUV squad car. | ||
| It was equipped with lights, emergency lights that looked exactly like a police vehicle. | ||
| And yes, they were wearing a vest with taser, other equipment that would a badge very similar to mine. | ||
| That no question, if they were in this room, you would assume that they are a police officer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chief Rule, I have done through the WCCO News. | |
| Can you describe the moments after that played out? | ||
| You said the person went into the home, and then can you help us understand the next 10-15 minutes of how we got to the point where we're at now? | ||
| Yeah, briefly, although I'm just going to remind us that this is an absolute and active investigation. | ||
| We have thousands of people sheltered in place in the city of Brooklyn Park right now. | ||
| We are in an extensive manhunt involving hundreds and hundreds of police officers and SWAT teams searching gridding-off areas as we believe confidently the suspect had fled out the back of the house after being confronted by the police. | ||
| Very briefly, after the officers had exchanged gunfire and the suspect retreated into Melissa's home, they immediately went up to the threshold and looked in and seen a male that was down, clearly had been struck by gunfire. | ||
| They made limited penetration, grabbed a hold of the male and drug him out to safety to attempt first aid. | ||
| However, he was pronounced dead shortly after that. | ||
| At that point, the officers surrounded the house, got additional resources and SWAT resources, and then ultimately went in with a drone identifying a female in the home. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How far apart are those two scenes? | |
| About eight miles? | ||
| I would say somewhere around five or six miles apart. | ||
|
unidentified
|
How much do you know about if the person that was impersonating the officer who allegedly shot these people, did they knock on the door and people came to the door or did the person break us in home? | |
| Yeah, it was knocking on the door and asking the person to come out, absolutely impersonating the police officer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you all have a suspect's car? | |
| We do have a suspect's car. | ||
| Suspect is on foot. | ||
| That is what the large-scale search is currently going on. | ||
| I just remind residents of Brooklyn Park, I know it's been a long time, but those that are in the grid that we gave the alert out to continue to shelter in place. | ||
| We're also reminding them that if somebody comes to the door and they knock on the door and claim to be a police officer, please do a couple things. | ||
| One, call 911 and confirm that the officer belongs there. | ||
| If they are a police officer, dispatch will be able to confirm that that person is a police officer. | ||
| Also, we've informed all our officers in Brooklyn Park that they are not to approach anybody by themselves. | ||
| They're to approach in pairs, meaning two officers. | ||
| So if there's only one officer outside the door, do not answer the door and call 911. | ||
| If it's a Brooklyn Park police officer or any of our partners that are assisting, they will come in pairs of two or more. | ||
| I'm sorry, one at a time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Do you know if the government said anything, like when he knocked on the door? | |
| Did he say anything to like Senator Hoffman or anything? | ||
| We do know that he did, but I'm going to hold that back as part of the investigation right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
You guys did detain someone for information? | |
| Is that correct? | ||
| This is a very large-scale search, so we have detained several people and questioned them, but we do not have anybody in custody at this time. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know you may not want to identify that person publicly, but have you privately identified the suspect? | |
| We have people of interest that we are looking for. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Michelle Griffith, Minnesota Reformer. | |
| Other than that, these are two Democratic lawmakers, is there anything else to suggest that this is politically motivated? | ||
| Again, I'm going to hold back most of the information. | ||
| This is part of the investigation that we've completed. | ||
| This is rapidly evolving. | ||
| It just occurred a few hours ago, and we're trying to sort it out. | ||
| We have partners from the FBI, the BCA, the Empire County Sheriff's Office, and almost every suburban agency in our community helping us with this. | ||
| So it's very complex and working on it. | ||
| But I will tell you, when we did a search of the vehicle, there wasn't a manifesto that identified many lawmakers and other officials. | ||
| We immediately made alerts to the state who took action on alerting them and providing security where necessary. | ||
| And that's about, I'll stop there. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Chief, thank you very much. | |
| We're going to take one more question. | ||
| With the PCA, can I ask just you used the word target, and that's kind of along the lines of Michelle's question in terms of politics, Democratic, public. | ||
| These are both Democratic lawmakers. | ||
| You said the word targeted, so targeted because they're politicians or targeted because they're dead targets. | ||
| So the question is, were they targeted? | ||
| And when I use the term, why am I using the term? | ||
| As Chief really noted, there was a list of individuals. | ||
| And the individuals that were targeted in this situation were on that list. | ||
| And so when we're looking at that, as Chief really said, it's far too early in the investigation to be able to provide information, but I do think we'll be in a position where we'll be able to develop the motivation behind these attacks and we'll be able to provide more information as this unfolds. | ||
| And so that's part of the reason we're using it is I think there's some preliminary information that is telling us kind of where this is headed, but we need a lot more work done by all the teams that are here working on that to be able to provide that with you with a degree of accuracy. | ||
| Are you sorry? | ||
| How many individuals were there? | ||
| There's a rally in the Capitol today. | ||
| Yep, one advice. | ||
| Colonel, do you want to talk about the rally of the capital? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Good morning, Colonel Bulgrievich with the State Patrol. | ||
| We are aware of the demonstrations across Minnesota, including the Capitol and across the nation. | ||
| We will work with our state partners and our local partners to provide security and safety for those that attend. | ||
| Chrissy Gunn Panera asks, can you confirm that you will have a sniper station at the Capitol today? | ||
| The question was, will we have a sniper at the Capitol? | ||
| We don't discuss our security plans on the Capitol grounds. | ||
| Colonel, thank you. | ||
| Thank you very much, everybody, for being here. | ||
| We will, I think you do have, and if you haven't. | ||
| Next week on the C-SPAN networks. | ||
| The House is out on a district work period. | ||
| The Senate has a short work week due to the Juneteenth federal holiday. | ||
| The Senate will vote Tuesday on final passage of stablecoin cryptocurrency legislation. | ||
| They'll also continue consideration of President Trump's executive nominations. | ||
| On Monday, Democratic New York Congresswoman Yvette Clark hosts a town hall in Brooklyn. | ||
| On Tuesday, talk show host and author Tavis Smiley will host a town hall on climate change and racial justice in Pasadena, California. | ||
| C-SPAN continues live coverage of cabinet secretaries and department officials appearing on Capitol Hill to discuss their budgets. | ||
| On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hagsett, Under Secretary of Defense Bryn Wollacott-McDonald, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Kane testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding their department's fiscal year 2026 budget. | ||
| Also, the Senate Judiciary Committee investigates concerns surrounding former President Biden's health. | ||
| And Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a news conference following the Federal Open Market Committee meeting. | ||
| And Thursday through Saturday, it's C-SPAN's live coverage of the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting from Tampa, Florida. | ||
| Watch live next week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
| Also, head over to c-span.org for scheduling information or to watch live or on demand anytime. |