A Midnight Assassin, Masked Agents and Rising Political Violence

A terror campaign is sweeping the United States, orchestrated from inside the White House and waged by masked, militarized federal agents. Its primary targets are immigrants. Also included are those in solidarity with immigrants, and, increasingly, elected officials, all from the Democratic Party. This state repression has a dark and disturbing parallel: vigilante violence. Last weekend in Minnesota, a masked gunman posing as a police officer shot and killed a prominent Democratic elected official and her husband, and shot and almost killed another elected official and his wife. While a suspect has been arrested, the question remains: if masked agents come to your door, are they police, ICE, or could they be assassins?

Vance Boelter, 57, an white evangelical Christian preacher and mortuary worker, is accused of murdering Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in the middle of the night on Saturday, June 14th. About 90 minutes earlier, Boelter, dressed as a police officer with a black SUV modified to look like a police car, banged on the front door of state Senator John Hoffman’s home. Boelter allegedly shot Hoffman and his wife Yvette multiple times. He is also accused of seeking two other Minnesota elected officials that night.

While exiting the Hortman home, Boelter was confronted by local police. He retreated back into the house, firing his gun then fleeing out the back door, leaving the couple dead. He abandoned his SUV with its small arsenal of weapons and a notebook that contained a “hit list” of at least 45 elected officials – all Democrats – along with abortion providers and healthcare workers.

These political assassinations took place hours before millions of people across the United States – including in Minneapolis and St. Paul – would gather for the “No Kings” day of protests. The protests were held in response to President Donald Trump’s military parade in Washington, DC, which he held on his 79th birthday. Boelter had “No Kings” flyers in his car, suggesting he also may have been targeting the protests. By late Sunday, after the largest manhunt in Minnesota history, Boelter had been caught. But in a nation awash with over 300 million guns and with Trump fanning the flames of division, the risk of political violence is extreme.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to promise to deliver “the largest mass deportation in US history.” Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, considered the architect of Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, has demanded federal officers meet a daily quota of 3,000 arrests.

To meet that goal, ICE and agents from the Dept. of Homeland Security have been sweeping worksites, homes, restaurants, marketplaces and anywhere they think large numbers of undocumented immigrants might gather – also sweeping up citizens and documented residents as well, denying almost everyone their rights to due process.

Elected officials have challenged this lawlessness, and in some cases, been arrested as well. Most recently, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, also a candidate in next week’s Democratic mayoral primary, was in a Manhattan federal building on Tuesday, escorting asylum seekers from immigration court. ICE agents waiting by the elevator attempted to arrest a man, and, when Lander demanded to see a judicial warrant, they violently arrested him too.

Speaking the next morning on the Democracy Now! news hour, Lander said,

“Pam Bondi was very clear, they’re trying to wreak havoc In cities. They say, to liberate Democratic cities from their duly-elected officials. This is part of what authoritarians do: strike fear into immigrant families and communities and try to undermine the rule of law and basic democracy by stoking conflict. Our challenge is to find a way to stand up for the rule of law, for due process, for people’s rights, and to do it in a way that is nonviolent and insistent, demands it, but also doesn’t help them escalate conflict.”

Last week, California Democratic US Senator Alex Padilla entered a press conference in Los Angeles, held by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. He was immediately tackled, handcuffed and detained. Speaking Tuesday on the Senate floor, Padilla emotionally recounted,

“I was forced to the ground, first on my knees and then flat on my chest. I was handcuffed and marched down a hallway … If that is what the administration is willing to do to a United States senator for having the authority to simply ask a question, imagine what they’ll do to any American who dares to speak up.”

President Trump, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller have proven over and over again that they will go to great lengths to silence their critics, which is all the more reason to speak out.