When Accountability Is a Choice

Boelter’s sentence shows accountability. Renée Good’s case shows who still escapes it.

Vance Boelter turned 59 on Thursday. He spent his birthday hearing a federal judge sentence him to two consecutive life terms, plus 40 years, for murdering Melissa and Mark Hortman and shooting John and Yvette Hoffman in their own homes.

The judge called it, in the Minnesota Star Tribune’s account, “an attack on democracy itself.” No parole. No possibility of release, ever, under the federal sentence.

That’s accountability. It’s also not the whole story.

What Boelter did, in his own words to his family

Boelter didn’t leave behind some sprawling political manifesto. What investigators found was closer to a hit list: roughly 70 names, mostly Democratic officials and abortion providers, built from searches and surveillance. Hours after the killings, he texted his own family group chat three words: “Dad went to war.”

From the Star Tribune’s account:

The shootings were the implementation of Boelter’s plan to rattle the political foundation of the state. He had plotted it for some time. Court filings say he frequently sent text messages to friends and family about the balance of power between the political parties in Minnesota, about the Republican U.S. House majority being “in danger” and that “Democrats steal enough elections to tip the balance of power.”

That’s the plainest evidence we have of what was in his head: A culmination of dangerous right-wing political rhetoric that motivated an attack on the Capitol in Washington and an attack on our political leaders here in Minnesota.

He had a target list, and a declaration of war against the people on it.

Federal prosecutors weren’t shy about naming what this was. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Forbes told the court, according to MPR News, that Boelter was “consumed with those he disagreed with.”

The Hortmans’ children told the court what his rampage cost them. Sophie Hortman described, in the same MPR account, having her entire life shattered in thirty seconds, then having to help decide whether to put the family dog down after Boelter shot him too. Colin Hortman spoke of panic attacks and of seeing his parents’ blood before he falls asleep each night, a detail reported by CBS Minnesota.

Why this isn’t over

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty isn’t dropping her case just because the federal one is done. Boelter still faces two counts of first-degree premeditated murder, four counts of attempted first-degree murder, felony cruelty to an animal, and impersonating a police officer, all in state court, according to CBS Minnesota’s coverage of the state case.

Moriarty’s reasoning matters. She said Boelter “will sit in a Hennepin County courtroom and be held accountable,” and her office has been explicit on one point in particular: State sentences aren’t touched by a presidential pardon. Federal ones are.

We don’t know what Donald Trump will do in four years, or in two, or next month. We do know he’s already pardoned thousands of January Sixers convicted of political violence. A Minnesota conviction on first-degree murder, carrying its own mandatory life sentence, is insurance against a future none of us can predict. That’s not paranoia. That’s just paying attention to precedent.

Moriarty is doing her job.

A different Chaska resident, a different outcome

Now hold that story next to another one, from a lot closer to home.

On January 7, ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who lived in Chaska, shot and killed Renée Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, through the windshield of her SUV on a Minneapolis street. She’d turned her wheel to drive away from the agents surrounding her car. His own cellphone audio caught what he said in the seconds after: “fucking bitch.”

Good was a mother of three. She has not received the accountability the Hortman and Hoffman families are receiving this week. Ross has not been charged with anything.

Minnesota and Hennepin County officials have said the federal government spent more than six months stonewalling their attempt to investigate: body camera footage, agent statements, even Good’s own SUV, all held out of state hands until officials sued to get them.

Seventeen days after Good was killed, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, on a different Minneapolis street. Minnesota has sued the federal government over that investigation too.

The silence that isn’t quite silence

Here’s what your Southwest Metro representatives in Washington and St. Paul did with all of that.

Congressman Tom (Go Get ‘Em ICE) Emmer, whose district includes Chaska, didn’t stay quiet. He posted on Facebook that he was grateful no Border Patrol agents were harmed, referring to the agents who killed Pretti, and accused his Democratic colleagues of jumping to conclusions.

State Senator Julia Coleman posted her own statement more than two weeks after Good’s death, a capitulation clothed in the language of compromise.

Neither one has publicly called for an investigation into Jonathan Ross’ role into the murder of Renée Good. Neither one has asked why the federal government spent half a year blocking state investigators from doing their jobs. Neither has said Ross’s own recorded words, aimed at a dying woman, deserve scrutiny.

That’s not silence. It’s the party line.

What you can do with this

Boelter will spend the rest of his life in prison, federally, and Minnesota is right to finish its own case so that outcome doesn’t depend on the mercy of whoever occupies the White House.

Renée Good’s case hasn’t gotten that far. Call Congressman Emmer’s office. Call Senator Coleman’s office. Ask them directly whether they support a full state and federal investigation into Jonathan Ross. Ask them why they haven’t already.

Keep asking. That’s how the six-month stonewall became a lawsuit. It’s how a lawsuit becomes evidence. It’s how evidence, eventually, becomes accountability.

And keep showing up on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (see below for details).

Chaska Protests

Every Friday from 3:00–4:00 p.m. at the corner of Chaska Blvd. and Chestnut Street (Highway 41) [Map]

Every Saturday from 1-2 pm at the corner of Hazeltine Boulevard and Highway 41 (Chestnut) [Map]

Chanhassen Protests

Every Saturday from 10-11 am at Kerber & West 78th. [Map] Public parking is available behind City Hall. Sign library is available.

Norwood Young America

Every Sunday, 11 a.m.–12 p.m. (Line up at the bike path south of Highway 212 and Faxon.)

Victoria

Every Wednesday from 4:30-5:30 pm on the corner of Highway 5 and Victoria Drive/County Rd 11.

Waconia

Every Saturday from 11:30-12:30 pm at Highway 5 and County Road 10 in front of the Starbucks and Jersey Mike’s. [Map]

SW Protectors

Every first and third Tuesday from 6:30 – 8:00 pm. It’s no cost and come and go as you like.

Please do buy something to eat or drink, though, to support our venue, which is The Bellows restaurant and it’s located at 232 Pioneer Trail in Chaska.