It Could Happen Here - The Minnesota Assassination & Evangelical Terrorism

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

James and Gare discuss the targeted assassination of a Minnesota Democrat by an anti-abortion evangelical missionary. Sources: https://mblsportal.sos.mn.gov/Business/SearchDetails?filingGuid=0792690a-c0b6-e811-9165-00155d0deff0 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25976535-boelter-federal-affidavit/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250614161224/https://www.pguards.net/leadership-team https://youtu.be/Sh01z1t2l3w?si=vSme9mqCPmeDROqp https://www.startribune.com/timeline-how-an-early-morning-assault-against-minnesota-lawmakers-unfolded/601373039 https://www.startribune.com/melissa-hortman-shooting-vance-boelter-suspect/601373342 https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/vance-boelter-due-back-in-federal-court-thursday-afternoon/ https://www.wired.com/story/shooting-minnesota-melissa-hortman-vance-boelter/ https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/17/us/vance-boelter-minnesota-shooting-invs https://web.archive.org/web/20230723010430/https://www.redliongroupdrc.com/#See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We planned a more silly intro and then decided not to do it due to the intense nature of the topic today. Yeah, so today we're going to discuss the assassinations of the Minnesota Democrat Farm Labor leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and the attempted murder of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. So if you don't prefer to listen to topics like that, now would be the time to skip this one. If you're not familiar with this topic, I guess the news cycle has been pretty hectic, but- No, this one's been memory-holed really quickly.

Yeah, considering we had just a straight-up political assassination, that is what this was, and it was less than a month ago, I don't really see people talking about it. I don't see it being reported on that much. I understand that the news cycle has been insane. But so is this. So we're going to talk about it. So just to give you if this is somehow passed you by or you've forgotten about it, in the very early morning of the 14th of June, Minnesota DFL, a Democrat party in Minnesota is called the Democrat Farm Labor Party. You can interchange it with Democrat, people often do. So Minnesota DFL leader Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were fatally shot along with

their dog. Shortly before, State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette had also been shot, with Yvette protecting her daughter from the bullets by diving on top of her, according to one account. A man called Vance Belter, it's pronounced Belter, I've watched a video of him saying his name, but it's spelled B-O-E-L-T-E-R if you're searching about this online, had banged on their door impersonating a cop and then asked if there were guns in the house when they opened the door. He claimed the shooting had been reported at their residence. At that point, Yvette

noticed that he was wearing a silicone mask. He had what's referred to in the affidavit I read as a hyper-realistic silicone mask. And they confronted him about this saying you're not a cop. And at that point he began shooting at them. It appears that he shot both of them eight or nine times with a nine millimeter pistol and then fled the scene in his Ford Escape SUV, which he had made up to look like a cop car, right? He had a police looking light bar in there.

He had bought some supplies, apparently at a fleet farm, to change the license plate, to make it look like the license plate, said police. After that, he left the scene of that first shooting and they said it's his daughter called 911. That was the first time the police were alerted. So he went, Garrison, you were telling me, he went to another public official's house who was on vacation, is that right? He went to two people's houses in between the next actual shooting. One of them he stopped at the house of a local state representative who was on vacation. He then moved on to another person's house where he was confronted by a police officer.

Yep. And he, during this time, the police officer noticed a white man in what they assume is a squad car, and this person wouldn't talk to the cop, just kept looking straight ahead and not speaking. Like a normal human. Yeah. A very normal, I don't know how cops interact with each other, but that doesn't seem normal to me. Anyway, this cop then proceeded to move towards this second public official's house and ignore the guy in a cop car in a silicone mask who wouldn't say a word. I guess that prevented that second public official from being targeted. Correct.

And that's when Bolter moved on to the Hortman home. It seems like local cops, when they heard that there had been a shooting at the Hoffman residence, went to check on other DFL politicians. This includes that incident that I just related to you, but also at the Hortman home. When the cops arrived at a Hortman home, they found a police looking SUV in the driveway with red and blue lights on and what looked like a cop in the doorway of the house. They confronted him. He seems to have fired through the door. I'm a little unclear on the exact timeline in the next minute of this, but at some point they confront him. At some point he shoots through the door.

He then enters the house and kills both the people inside as well as their dog. The police engage him and he flees through the back of the house. The police then enter the house and drag out Mark Courtman who had been shot through the door. They attempt to do CPR but they're unable to save him. They then establish a perimeter and enter the house with a drone. And it is a drone that finds Melissa Hortman remains. She's also dead.

In the vehicle that he abandoned, they found several AK pattern rifles, a notebook with other targets. And also in the notebook notebook he'd written the online search tools he'd used to find these addresses, the different online people searches. Data broker websites. Data broker is the word I'm looking for, thank you. He remained on the run throughout that day. The next, during that time, he purchased an e-bike and an old Buick with cash from his

bank account, which he emptied. On Sunday, so the next day, authorities found the car in the afternoon. In the car, he had left a letter addressed to the FBI admitting his crimes. He was then spotted by somebody on a game camera or a trail camera. And shortly after that, he was located by a drone, and then he was arrested in a field. The day before the shooting, he turned off his phone and left it in a Home Depot. Employees the day after the shooting found the phone, turned it on, police tried to raid the Home Depot because they assumed that he was in the Home Depot and turned on his phone.

And then they realized it was just a phone. I think it was in like an SUV or like it was in like a truck bed or a vehicle outside the Home Depot. Okay, he just dumped his phone. Yeah, they did also find the location of his wife based on her cell phone, right? Let's just explain a little bit about who this guy is, I guess when we get on to his wife. Yeah. Belter was 57 years old, is 57 years old. He's a father of five. As I said, his vehicle, I'm going to get into this a bit later, contained another list of targets and included Democrat politicians and abortion providers.

His roommates confirmed that he was a Trump supporter, but they were still very shocked that he did this. In all the interviews I've seen, one of his roommates, David Carlson said, quote, he kept things inside. He's being kind of down. He was not as upbeat as he usually is. He had, it seems like a couple of residences, like he would stay somewhere closer to work some of the time.

Yeah. He was renting a room in one of his friend's houses. And then he had a larger house outside of town that he was trying to like keep up with payments on. Yeah. And he gave three months of rent in advance to a friend whose room he was renting. And he also sent a message saying goodbye to his friends. He and his wife were both preppers. And it seems that he sent a text message to his wife

that read, quote, Dad went to war last night. So some other stuff in it too, but that part was relevant. She was detained shortly after he began murdering people. In her vehicle, there was a revolver and a semi-automatic handgun. The handgun was in a cooler. I don't know why. She also had 10 grand in cash, passports, and she seemed to be following their sort of bug out plan, right?

Yeah, they had a quote unquote a bailout plan for like this like apocalypse prepper scenario that his wife was instructed to carry out shortly after he did the shooting and he warned his wife that men with guns might be coming to the house soon. Yeah, his wife has been released right? There seems to be no suggestion that his wife was... She didn't seem to be aware of his plans to do this. Yeah.

It does seem a strange thing to just text someone that men with guns might be coming to your house, so that you immediately leave the house with ten large in cash, your passports and two handguns. But who am I to judge, I guess? Sometimes preppers are just like that. Yeah, yeah. Is it right if you have spent your entire life preparing for the moment when the big bad government's gonna come to your house and I guess you've been working

up to this for a while or in a different mindset. Talking of mindset, Garrison, I'm in the mindset to buy some things. So let's hear some advertisements. Sounds like a much happier mindset than the past 10 minutes. Okay. All right, we are back. And I wanted to have a little chat about some of Belter's professional background, because I think some of this has probably been overplayed.

It's certainly confusing because he seemingly had a lot of jobs over the course of his career, some of which were real, some of which were kind of not real, but he tried to make real. Yeah. He's had what they've called a quote unquote varied career. Yes. What we're seeing is like LinkedIn manifesting, right? It, this is a thing that middle-aged guys especially do, right? But I've seen it from all kinds of folks, like posting on LinkedIn, like you're

some kind of C-suite executive while you're struggling to make rent. Definitely. Yeah. And I think LinkedIn, it's often the first thing that pops up on Google when you search on what's his name. And so sometimes these things can be overplayed in our understanding of someone's background, especially when it's something like this and people who might not have O-synced a lot are trying to O-sync something in the moments after the name of a shooter comes out.

Let's talk about his LinkedIn. On LinkedIn he is listed as the Director of Security Patrols for a company called Praetorian Guard Security Services. If you are starting a security company don't call it that because there are so many of them, and many of them I think have been getting unwelcome attention as they're confused for his company. I did a company search on the Minnesota Registry of Companies there for Pretorian Guard Security Services and I found it was established in his wife's name in 2018. On website says, quote, Vance has been involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East,

including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. He brings a great security aspect forged by both private security firms and people in the US military, he worked for the largest US oil refining company, the world's largest food company based in Switzerland, no comma, and the world's largest convenience retailer based in Japan. First of all, very difficult to read that series of sentences aloud, but involved with security situations is an incredibly vague term. Yeah, he's just listing a number of places that he's been Or maybe not even been right like texting someone because he has been to I think most of these places

Okay, I couldn't find him in Gaza. Is there there's yes. He has been and I'll get to that in a sec So he's certainly been to these places. He has not necessarily worked security in all these places, right? He's certainly been to these places. He has not necessarily worked security in all these places, right? Yeah, and he has worked with companies that he's alluding to here He may be kind of exaggerating or talking about them in a grandiose fashion But he has worked for a lot of like food industry companies over the course of his career Which we'll get to in a sec. He also started a earlier security company in 1999 that shut down around 2009. Similarly, did not seem to like really do very well. And it was kind of more of like a side hustle as he was working at these different food companies.

So this wasn't the first kind of like sort of fake security company that he started, nor was it the last fake security company that he started. So I was cruising the Petroleum security company that he started. Yes. So I was cruising the Petroleum Guide website, which someone had archived. And so there are like four tiers of memberships, a membership-based model. Subscription service security. Yeah. Iron, bronze, silver, and gold were the options.

Maybe the platinum, I don't recall. He uses his PhD, which we can get onto at some point. But what was more interesting to me was that they have a series of quote unquote red lines on the website, things that customers cannot expect him to change or compromise their integrity to his business. And part of that was, quote, we offer armed security. If you're looking for unarmed guards, please work with another service to meet your needs better. He only works with armed security, no unarmed security. If you're looking for unarmed guards, please work with another service to meet your needs better.

He only works with armed security. No unarmed security. Right. Yeah. If I'm not carrying guns, I'm not doing it. Which kind of seemed he wants to he wants to pretend to be a cop. We drive the same make and model of vehicles that many police departments use in the US. Currently, we drive Ford Explorer utility vehicles. He also has a big thing about how they wear the most up-to-date body armor, and they won't not wear body armor. ACAP includes the Ford Explorer once again. Yeah.

This stuff really kind of illustrates, I think, what he was in it for, which is to dress up like a cop and do cop shit. The website coffee is incredibly generic and very poorly written. The photos are, like, we're talking MS Paint tier photoshopping on here. Yeah. Now he just loved making websites. I've looked through maybe like five of this guy's websites. He specifically I know previously in the 20 like around 2011, he specifically paid a website designer in Jerusalem to be in support of Israel, to

design a number of his websites. And by 2023, Praetorian Guard Security Services had yet to secure any clients at all in its entire history as a company, which his wife blamed COVID for saying that they were just trying to get this business up and running and then COVID hit and then it kind of all fell apart. Let me tell you, there has never been a place in human history where there was more demand for private security services than Minnesota in 2020. I have seen outrageous day rates paid to private security consultants in Minneapolis in 2020. I had a whole article that we never ended up publishing

about this, but I think it's fair to say that if you couldn't start it up there, then you ain't starting it up anywhere. The lowest rate just for reference was $695 a month for Iron membership. $695 a month for the lowest membership. And they'll like pop around your house a couple of times a month was basically what you got for that. And then you had access to upgrade your protection level if civil unrest occurred, basically. Oh, thank goodness.

Yeah, this guy was kind of like a crank. And as we'll see, he's like, he's both like a cop larper, a bit of a crank and a Pentecostal evangelical. Yeah. And as soon as you put all those pieces together, you can immediately identify what type of guy this is. Yeah, exactly. Like, one of the things I do just sort of periodically is check in on, like, right prep

culture, right? God's holiest warrior here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's absolutely people who have, like, a print of a picture of a crusader somewhere in their home, or perhaps a statuette. Yeah, he literally called it the Praetorian Guard. Yeah, no, there's this guy probably, he might own an actual Gladius, it's a decent chance. So yeah, this is a type of guy, and we'll continue to build that profile for you here.

David Carlson, his roommate, said of the company, quote, it wasn't a reality. It was like a goal he had, but it was never realized. He bought a couple of cars and maybe some uniforms. It was never a real company. There's some more documents I'm going to order from the Minnesota Registry of Companies just to scope them out, but I think this was it. Basically another failed business venture, right? He from 2023 to 2025 was working for a funerary services provider.

He posted a video. It seems to be an introduction for some kind of business class. I believe he was enrolled in some community college classes. He took a few like online mortuary science classes as well. Yeah, because that's what he was doing. So he's working full time at Wolf Funery Home. And then also at something called Metro First Call, which was another funeral services provider. He does mention in some detail that he works with police in that video talks about how he works with police when he's removing the remains of deceased

people right might be someone who just died or their death may have been violent. The second security company that he claimed to be the CEO of listed on his LinkedIn again was called the Red Lion Group along with a dead URL. Which is more than just a security company too, I think. Yeah, they did phishing. Actually kind of was trying to be a sort of humanitarian company or like a non-profit charity. I'll get to it more later.

Yeah, in a model of the old, the Gaza model, I guess. Kind of. Yeah, actually. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, yeah, the URL was registered for Redline in 2023, according to who his lookup I did, while he was working for the funerary company, right? He appears to have done a few things or given a few accounts of what he was doing in Africa. A local farmer, he had told he was relaying modern farming techniques to people in Congo. I've spent a decent amount of my life in agriculture. Like farming is quite different in Congo

and in Minnesota actually. Nonetheless, I guess there's some things they could learn. He also talked about helping with food supply systems. He talked about running this company. Asgarison is going to cover in more detail. He also did some evangelical preaching. A Presbyterian, he was a Presbyterian, right? Quick correction.

In the first copy of this episode, we incorrectly called him a Presbyterian. He is in fact a Pentecostal. I mixed up my Christian P words. John Calvin will still pay, but yes, this is a Pentecostal evangelical. He says in his video that he and his wife first went to Congo alone without employer support to help with food services. On his LinkedIn page, he wrote, I have been doing projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa for the last three years with Red Lion Group.

Just to be clear, he wasn't located in DRC for all of that time, but he seems to have taken several trips there, maybe on his time off from working at a funerary home. He seems to have taken some mission trips in the 2018 to 2023 timeframe, from what I can work out. It seems like most of his trips there were mostly for missionary work. And specifically, he picked up these jobs at the funeral homes to pay for this, while also trying to get this company off the ground in the Congo. An archived version of the Redline website states that they specialize in food production and that they are, quote, working on building the first modular oil refinery in the Democratic

Republic of Congo, developing a logging company and have one of the only glass manufacturing facilities in the entire country." They later say, Job creation is our number one goal. Profits are important, but that has always been and always will be our number two goal. But even if profit isn't there in the end for Red Lion, but if we were able to create good jobs that can be self-sustained by the project, where people can support themselves and their families, then that is good enough for us." He has an interesting way of saying words there. Yeah.

You don't need a high level criminologist to find out what this guy wrote. Like it'd be pretty obvious if he wrote his own manifesto, etc. So yeah, it's a company that was trying to do everything and actually kind of did nothing. Mm-hmm. I'm aware of a Red Lion group operating in that area, but it's not linked to his name. There are US probably people as part of private security companies doing private security work in the DRC mostly around mines, right? So we're protecting infrastructure and employees. And a lot of Israelis kicking around as well in that area. Many such cases.

Yeah. And there will be front groups that allow, I mean, a lot of the straight up mercenary fighters who you'll find in Congo are from Romania. People remember a bunch of them were captured in Kiev recently. And like, there will sometimes be American or other like global north companies that are essentially pass throughs for those. No, I'm sure this like former like middle manager at food, like industry companies was not doing PMC work in the Congo. Yeah, that's just not true. He was there like preaching. Yeah, exactly. I think he get again, right? He aspired to do cool guy gun shit. And this

was an attempt to do cool guy gun shit. In 2025, he went to the DRC earlier this year, apparently again, to try and get this business going. When he had purchased a fishing boat, again, like diversification. Yeah, he failed, I guess, some arm groups, or like an exercise in control of the area he wanted to presumably fish in. Not surprising. It feels like he's not really engaging with this as an expert might. The failure of this seems to have had a negative impact on his mental health. And then just to wrap up on his mental well-being and where he's at right now. Since

his arrest, Belter has complained several times about jail conditions. He says lights are on 24 hours a day, he's constantly woken by loud noises, he doesn't have a pillow. A court appearance he said he had slept in nearly two weeks, which obviously is not good for the human body. I think it's sort of called sheriff detaining him said that like it's disgusting that he's made himself the victim here. So he's being charged federally, right? And the federal charges will come first and then any state charges will come. The DOJ is obviously interested in getting involved here because of the imitation of

a police officer because these are clearly politically motivated assassinations, right? And they can see the death penalty federally. I don't know if they will, but I don't know if they can do that in Minnesota. Since his arrest, he has also waved a detention hearing saying that he wanted to get to court faster. I'm going to quote from him here. That guest asked to court faster where the truth can come out. Quote, I think Minnesotans want to know what's going on.

Yes, they do. His court appearance could be interesting. Yeah. Should we, Yarrison, talking of interesting, take a break to hear about some interesting products and services that people might like to avail themselves of? I think we shall. MUSIC

MUSIC All right, we're back. Let's talk a little bit, at least briefly mention some of the conspiracy theories regarding this fella, and then we'll get into some of his religious background and kind of fill in the gaps from these like many different business ventures he's tried to get up and running. So James, what kind of theories do people have out in the world about what's really going on here? There have been a few, Garrison.

One notable one was that he was a Democrat, which does not appear to be true. We don't have any evidence of that. No, he did not politically register to parties for the past eight years, but had supported Trump and wrote in 2018 that the upcoming election was the most important one of their lifetimes, which to be fair, many people also said. Yeah, and have said for every election since.

But he has a conservative Christian evangelical who has supported Trump. Seemingly, his main like political motivating factor was abortion. Yeah. As we will get into more shortly. No, not a Democrat. Yeah, not a Democrat. He worked for Tim Walz. This is not Tim Walz's strongest soldier.

I'm sorry fellas, it's not true. The reason the Democrat theory, one of the reasons behind the Democrat theory continuing to spread is that US Senator Mike Lee shared it, right? Yeah, in an unhinged rant. Yeah, maybe I'll pull up that tweet really quick. Lee has since taken down his tweet, his seat, but in the seat he posted Nightmare on Wall Street with a picture of Belter, another Lee post. And that's Wall Street to clarify for those who do not speak British. It has to be functionally Garrison there from Canada, where they understand both British and American English. Well, actually, we speak in native Minnesotan.

You are uniquely equipped. Lee also posted quote, this is what happened when Marxists don't get their way with another picture of Belter. Yeah, a sitting US Senator calling this guy like Mike Walls, like Marxist super soldier. None of this is true. No. Now Belter had been appointed to serve on a state economic board back in 2016 by then Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton. One of the surviving victims of the shooting, state senator John Hoffman, also served on this board. But this board had 41 members. It's unclear if the two actually ever interacted or knew each other. It seems unlikely. They only met a few times a year as a group and most of that's been

online the past few years. So you're basically just joining a Zoom call. We do not think that Vance Belter and Senator John Hoffman actually interacted on this board. Now, Tim Walz later reappointed Belter because he just served on the board already for four years. So it's not like this was a big political appointee. This was an economic advisory board, because Belter had worked for a lot of different corporations. So this is really not a real connection. Walls did not know this guy. And certainly this guy was not a Marxist, nor was it carrying out

orders from a future Lieutenant Commander of the Midwest, Tim Walls, and the People's Army of Western America. What's actually going on here is that instead of being a Marxist, this guy is a pretty bog-standard evangelical. Bolter got a diploma in, quote, practical theology in Leadership and Pastoral from the Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas back in 1990. He was ordained in 1993. Instead of security consulting work, it seems most of his overseas travel was actually missionary

work. Starting in 1993, Bolter and his wife ran a Christian nonprofit called the Reformation Ministries, according to federal tax records. A version of this ministry's website, archived from 2011, says that Bolter traveled to Gaza and the West Bank during the Second Intifada, where he, quote, "...sought out militant Islamists in order to share the gospel and tell them that violence wasn't the answer." Unquote.

It's a hell of an area. There's a lot of things to unpack there. Evidently, this guy eventually determined that violence was the answer. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's somewhat hypocritical. Certainly actually took a note from the militants in the end. It does seem like he was traveling the Middle East in the 90s. This does seem to be true. In 2006, he self-published a Christian book called Original Ability. Can Man Obey God? Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate a copy of this book. It seems to not really exist online. Many such cases. This is a self-published Christian book from 2006. This was before you could use, like, you know, Amazon publishing

as readily as you do now. Now all of the crank books I can easily buy on Amazon the day after a shooting. Not the case for this. Now, Bolter did work in the food industry. He worked for Johnsonville Sausage, Gerber, 7-Eleven. This was what he did for most of his career. CNN claims that in 2021, he quit his job and started traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo more frequently to do missionary work and with the express interest in solving hunger.

Friends say that after quitting his job, he started putting more of his money into these bizarre startup businesses like security work and this fishing company in the Congo. A friend who asked to remain anonymous told CNN, quote, I was more on the side of, hey, buddy, this doesn't sound right. It's irresponsible to quit your job. And now you're burning through cash. It just made no sense to me. Unquote. I guess we should address the name of that company as a conspiracy that I've forgotten Garrison. Oh, good. Oh, another conspiracy just dropped. In some of the heraldry associated with the non-existent state of Rhodesia, there are red lions.

I don't see any particular evidence that is where he got his red lion from. I think from the crusades and the heraldry associated with that is much more likely given what you've just outlined. Yeah, that makes sense to me as well. He doesn't strike me as like a, I'm sure this person probably wasn't like woke, but like his whole thing is not race hate. Evidently not. Actually, we can say for certain this guy was not woke.

Not woke confirmed. But he's not like a massive racist. He's not, that's not his main motivating factor here. Yes, no. He's not the next last Rhodesian. He's racist in the way that all Christian missionaries who go to countries full of non-white people are racist, but not in like the neo-Nazi Rhodesian way. Yep.

Now, his friend and roommate David Carlson told CNN, quote, the problem is, he quit all his jobs to go down there, then he comes back and tries to find new jobs. Wasn't working out too good." That's saying it mildly. As recently as 2023, Belter was still preaching evangelical sermons in the Congo. In one sermon uploaded to YouTube, he attacked gay and trans people, saying, The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul. In another sermon, he preached against churches that affirmed a woman's right to choose and said, quote, God will raise an apostle or prophet to correct their course. God is going to raise apostles and prophets in America to correct His church, unquote.

Interesting. Which might sound a little weird or violent if you're unfamiliar with this style of preaching, but this is frankly very common. This is the common all across this country. I like America. Like, this is a very normal style of preaching. That's not good, right? That's not saying it's good. No. But that's why so much of, you know, the mega-based Republicans are like that. It's because this is what they go to listen to every Sunday. Wired found in his now deleted Facebook that he liked and followed

several other evangelical and Pentecostal missionary organizations that target countries in Africa, as well as the anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ legal advocacy group, the ADF, the Alliance Defending Freedom. Now, as horrifying as what happened on the Saturday of the shooting, this was just a little bit of what he had planned. In his vehicle, there was a list of over 70 named political targets, like Minnesota politicians Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar. This list included other Democratic politicians from Wisconsin and Ohio, one from Texas. The list also included abortion rights activists, as well as current and former Minnesota Planned Parenthood staff.

This was primarily a shooting directed at people and organizations that he saw as being pro-abortion. This is the main motivating factor that we can tell so far. This is the thing that links all of these people together. And I think he fits into that model of anti-abortion terrorism quite neatly. Yeah, just like the Olympic bombing. Now, flyers with information on the No Kings protest later that day were also found in the car, with those rallies being another possible target for violence.

Things did not go that way because he was intercepted by police probably earlier than he expected. Now, in the home that he was renting, police found more notebooks and handwritten lists of names and home addresses of, quote, numerous Minnesota public officials. This includes Hortman's home, which he wrote has a, quote, big house off golf course, two ways in unquote. So he was making notes on the homes of targets, how to get in them, the surrounding area. He was familiar with these areas. Concerning to me actually that like these people, I did notice that the California Assembly has recently tried to authorize spending of more campaign funds on private security for legislators. But like, some of these people are relatively high up in the Minnesota DFL,

others working for Planned Parenthood. The person that was killed was the top state Democrat. Yeah. An extremely serious person in state politics. Yeah, that their addresses are that easily searchable is scary. I'm worried for them. I'm sure that like this will provoke a change in people's security practices. Yeah, I mean, we've been warning that things like this were down the pipe for years and...

And for abortion providers, like this has been the case for decades. Exactly. This has already been something that you can threat model. This is a reality. And as for targeting Democratic politicians, there's hundreds and hundreds of posts of Republicans and conservatives frothing at the mouth at the idea of killing Democratic politicians. Yeah. That's what they wanted to do on January 6th. This isn't like an unforeseen event.

It's kind of a logical conclusion to the way we've been traveling for a long time. Yeah. This is an extremely predictable aspect of our politics now. And at least for Belter, like, it's pretty clear now to investigators that he was researching targets and planning this for months. Yeah. Like this wasn't like a snap of the moment decision. Like he just like went crazy one night. Like he was wanting to do something like this for a long time and had put

months of planning and work into it. Yeah. He had a series of silicone masks, right? He ditched them after he ditched his first mask after the first shooting. He disassembled his handgun and ditched that in various parts. After the first shooting, he had a series of weapons he was planning on moving along to. He had a police vest. He had a taser to appear more like a cop. Police badge.

Yep, a badge to appear more like a cop. Police badge. Yep, a badge to appear more like a cop. I heard a press conference where I think it's probably the chief of police said if he was standing with us, you would assume he was another cop, right? Like he'd gone a long way into planning this. And clearly as a threat that the police had modeled to, right? Because they immediately responded to other Democrat politicians' homes or quickly responded to other Democrat politicians homes or quickly responded to other Democrat politicians homes How quick the police response was to other people's homes who were not like immediately evident were the ones under attack is pretty notable Yeah, it is notable and like it probably saved more people's lives

Yeah, because this guy he had a GPS device a Garmin like an old-school You know those little GPS's used to, Garrison, this may not have occurred in your lived experience. You used to be able to buy a GPS that you put on the dashboard of your vehicle, yeah. And you could put addresses into there. I'm guessing you've used- I've used one. Okay, yeah, Garrison. Old Garrison.

Get in the replies if you are Gen Alpha and you don't know what that is, and make Garrison feel old. Oh no, we do have Gen Alpha listeners now, damn know what that is, it would make Garrison feel old. Oh no, we do have Jen Alpha listeners now. Damn. Yeah, yeah, we do. Welcome to the jungle, buddy. Yeah, but no, he was playing this for a while. In his main home outside the city, police found 47 guns and $20,000 in cash. I don't know why he didn't take his cash.

Well, I think this is like a prepper type thing. He was arrested near his home, so he was probably on his way back there to grab shit and then like get out. Yeah, and he bought that e-bike, like I think that's probably how his fans travel. I think he used a GPS, right? Because it's not traceable like a phone is. He drained his bank account, met someone at a bus stop and bought the e-bike off them and then found out they had a car and went took the bus back and bought that car. Like he was trying to get a car that wasn't

traceable to him. It's what he's trying to do. Right. And he's trying to get the e-bike, which is a vehicle that allows him to travel kind of off road and not be detectable. He'd really thought this out. And like, it could have been a lot worse. I guess. Yeah, this is this is all I had on here. I guess the last thing we will want to talk about before we close is just like how it relates to the general political temperature at the moment. Yeah, we've had like a series of assassinations or targeted assassinations, attempted assassinations in the past year. Like the Trump assassination attempt was less than a year ago.

Yeah, obviously, Luigi Mangione. With the second Trump assassination attempt was less than a year ago. Yeah. Obviously, Luigi Mangione. The second Trump assassination attempt. Yep. You had the man who tried to burn down Josh Shapiro's home. Someone tried to burn down Nathan Fletcher's home in San Diego. This is just something that happens now. You can even look at things like the shooting of the two Israeli embassy staffers. Like, this style of assassination kind of went away for a while.

And then I think really around Shinzo Abe, you started to see this spread throughout the world and now America as a strategy that siphons away people who maybe would have done a mass shooting are now doing stuff like this. But it's also attracting a whole new base of people. People who would actually never do a mass shooting instead can direct a level of animosity in this direction. Yeah, it's people who think they are the good guys in this way. The people doing mass shootings I think tend not to think they're the good guys. They just kind of, you know, we don't need to dive into the motivations of mass shooters here.

Yeah, but there's like rejecting society and nihilistic display. Nihilism, yeah, exactly. Whereas this is not that. This is someone who thinks that they're striking a blow for good and against evil. No, this is ideological. This is like spiritual warfare. Yeah. We're going to keep tracking what he says in court because I think that will tell us a lot more about this.

We'll find out like what I assume he wants to use his, like use the court as a pulpit, right? From which which to preach which to share his views, because he's admitted to doing this in this letter to the FBI. And it was very obviously him. So that will be very telling, it will be a while before we see this guy in court, nearly all federal prosecutions and in plea deals. If they, I don't know if they will push to the death penalty, but he might be able to plead that down to life in prison. Um, so he, he might end up doing that. Um, but he, at this point seems determined to have a trial.

And so we will probably see a grand jury indictment and then a trial. All right. So I think part of the reason there have been so many conspiracy theories about his, particularly his private security consulting, particularly in the DRC, is that for so many Americans to include people who go there to preach often, Africa in general and the DRC in particular, they see it through the same lens as Joseph Conrad did, as this heart of darkness, this place where things are 200 years behind and everyone is quote unquote, I'm using these terms, because these people use them not because I believe

they are true. Many friends from Congo, like Congolese people, they think people that are primitive and backwards and need to be like uplifted, civilized and Christianized, right? And that is reflected in our media, where you cannot write about Africa, other than from an extremely condescending perspective in this country as someone who covers conflict, as someone who's covered terrorism, you know, the Islamic State is alive and well in Africa, but you wouldn't know it if you even if you read front to back cover of most of the major dailies every day, because Africa is seen as a country not a continent by far too many people, including in the media, in this country. And I think that is what has led to some of these kind of spiraling conspiracies about his work there. And it's

something we in the media need to address, because it will only become more relevant on the global stage, I think, in the next few years. Oh, that doesn't for us today at It Could Happen Here. It's happening. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. For My Heart Podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is the turning, River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped.

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