More than 100 police officers searched for two days for the suspect in the shootings of two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses. They finally captured him late Sunday, the hunt ending when he crawled to officers who had tracked him to a field outside Minneapolis.
The suspect, Vance Boelter, 57, had been on the run for a day and a half when investigators found his car and hat Sunday afternoon on a remote stretch of road in Sibley County, a largely rural area southwest of Minneapolis — about an hour’s drive from the sites of the attacks early Saturday.
Dozens of police officers and about 20 SWAT teams had fanned out across the county over the weekend, in what officials called the largest manhunt in state history.
The search area narrowed when an officer reported seeing a person he thought was the suspect darting into woods nearby, Elliot Faust, a deputy police chief in Brooklyn Park, Minn., told reporters at a news conference Sunday night. A resident also reported seeing Mr. Boelter on a trail camera, Chief Faust said.
SWAT team officers confirmed that an image on the trail camera showed the suspect. They set up a one-square-mile perimeter in the area, deploying drones and police dogs, Chief Faust said.
Officers spotted Mr. Boelter and used a drone to track him from overhead as he crawled through thick shrubs, Chief Faust said. They converged on him, and although he was armed, no force was used while arresting him, officials said. He was captured not far from the home outside Green Isle, Minn., where he lived with his wife and children.
At a makeshift command center in a parking lot nearby, officers congratulated each other after the manhunt ended.
The sheriff of Ramsey County, Minn., Bob Fletcher, posted a photo on Facebook showing Mr. Boelter standing in a field as he was taken into custody. The photo appeared to be altered, with officers’ faces obscured.
Though the manhunt went on for nearly two days and had the state on edge, Drew Evans, the superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said that it could have taken even longer had it not been for the swift action of Brooklyn Park police officers who responded early Saturday to a report of a shooting at the residence of State Senator John A. Hoffman. Officers proactively went to Representative Melissa Hortman’s home to check on her, and found Mr. Boelter there.
“If that had not happened,” Superintendent Evans said on Sunday, “I have every confidence that this would have continued throughout the day.”
When the police arrived at Ms. Hortman’s house, the suspect immediately opened fire on the responding officers, he said. The officers returned fire, and the man escaped out the back door of the house on foot onto a golf course, setting off the manhunt.
Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs reports on national stories across the United States with a focus on criminal justice. He is from upstate New York.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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