The shootings of two Minnesota state lawmakers early Saturday signal that “we live in a toxic environment,” where rhetoric could “flip the switch” in a person wanting to do harm, former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman said on Newsmax Sunday.
“We live in a toxic environment where those on the other side are described as Hitler, going to destroy the country,” the Minnesota Republican told Newsmax’s “Sunday Report.” “But all that said and done, I just want to be real clear that there is evil and that there are mad men who are out there.”
Federal and state authorities are still searching for the suspect, Vance Boelter, 57. The FBI has issued a reward of up to $50,000 for his arrest and conviction.
Former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in their Brooklyn Park, and Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, survived several gunshots at their Champlin address, about 9 miles away.
The shootings have been described as being political in nature, but officials have not detailed a motive.
Coleman on Sunday said that “it would be great if we could tone” down the rhetoric.
“I don’t know if we can go back again,” he said. “We live in a very dangerous time. My daughter-in-law is a state senator. You know, this hits home, very personally to me. But it is simply frightening.”
Coleman said he feels a “great sadness” over Hortman’s death, and noted that like him, she had “detested the things that the Democrats did during that last legislative session.”
“They transformed this state in a horrible way, but none of that even comes close to providing any signal for anyone to do this act of horror,” he added.”My heart goes out to the Hortman family, two kids, to the Hoffmans and their family.”
Coleman further had a message for the people of Minnesota.
“We’re better than this,” he said. “Let’s pray together. Let’s stay together and let’s do all that we can to make sure that this cycle of violence never occurs again.”
Former FBI Agent Steve Gray, also on Sunday’s show, told Newsmax that he suspects that the suspect in the case coordinated the attacks over several months, or even years.
“He probably practiced driving through the area several times,” he said. “He did counter-surveillance of the houses. He also had what I believe was a backup plan for escape as well. He had planned to leave via the front door of the second house that was blocked by police. He got into a shootout with police, went out the back door, and subsequently disappeared awful fast. Which leads me to believe that he had a second vehicle waiting or someone picked him up.”
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