In what has to be the worst “Drew Wilson was right” moment ever, two democrat lawmakers were targeted in an assassination plot.
One of the things that has long followed me around was the occasional uncanny knack of predicting the future. Sometimes, it’s predictions that people think are crazy only to be shocked when it comes true. Other times, it’s warnings of something that will happen that is echoed by others, but dismissed by decision makers only to have come true whether the decision makers wanted it or not. Ultimately, it’s something that just seems to happen to me from time to time, so I ran with this and dubbed it the “Drew Wilson was right” series.
Now, just because I’m right doesn’t necessarily mean my reaction is always going to be some smug “I told you so” response. In fact, that is rarely the case. Sometimes, I’m not happy about being right. In fact, my reaction is more closer to The Simpsons Chalkboard gag, “being right sucks” after accurately predicting the Trump presidency. I’ve lost track of how many times I thought, “I hate being right sometimes” because my prediction was made out of cynicism and I had hoped for a better outcome only to see my cynicism hit the nail on the head anyway.
Yet, out of all the “Drew Wilson was right” moments, none of them involved someone getting killed. On Friday night, I wrote an article talking about the insane rhetoric coming from some officials in response to a protest that is being planned. I was frustrated by the whole situation and I closed with this paragraph:
This is why this tension is worrying me a lot. With certain officers adopting a “kill them all” approach, I worry that I’ll be waking up tomorrow to see articles talking about how police opened fire into a crowd of American’s as innocent lives get slaughtered by the most seriously deranged sicko’s in uniform. This is so seriously messed up right now.
While some of the context of which the events would happen was off, the prediction, in the most spooky way I’ve ever seen in my life, ended up happening. On Saturday, I woke up and read this article:
2 Democratic lawmakers shot at their homes in Minnesota, 1 killed
Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were injured, when a man dressed like a police officer showed up at their homes overnight and opened fire, local officials say. The suspect is still at large.
The first shooting happened just after 2 a.m. on Saturday at the Champlin home of State Senator John Hoffman, a Democrat who has served in the Minnesota Senate since 2013. Hoffman suffered at least two gunshot wounds while his wife Yvette was shot three times.
After the shooting, officers decided to check up on State Representative Melissa Hortman, who lived a few miles south near the Edinburgh Golf Course in Brooklyn Park. Hortman had been a representative since 2005 and was currently the Democratic leader in the Minnesota House.
When officers arrived at the home, they encountered the gunman, leading to an exchange of gunfire.
Worth noting was that the perpetrator was dressed in a police uniform to impersonate an officer.
I’m not going to lie, I spent the rest of the day being absolutely creeped out that my prediction was largely accurate. It took the whole day to try and process what just happened. While I was processing the absolutely fucked up situation, the headlines and articles kept flowing.
A manhunt is still happening for the person responsible for this reprehensible crime. Reports came out about how this assassination was politically motivated. From NBC:
As a massive manhunt for Vance Boelter continues, authorities are piecing together a profile of the alleged gunman accused of killing a Democratic Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another in two separate “politically motivated” shootings on Saturday morning.
State Rep. Melissa Hortman of Brooklyn Park and her husband, Mark, were killed in one shooting, and State Sen. John Hoffman of Champlin and his wife, Yvette, were severely injured in another. Hoffman and his wife remain hospitalized.
Another report noted that the suspect apparently had a hit list of a dozen Democrat lawmakers as well. From ABC:
Vance Luther Boelter, the 57-year-old that authorities have identified as the suspected gunman wanted for allegedly shooting and killing a state representative and shooting and wounding a state senator in a targeted act of violence, allegedly had dozens of Minnesota Democrats on a target list.
Those on the list included Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and state Attorney General Keith Ellison, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter.
Police said the list — which was retrieved from the suspect’s vehicle — also named Hortman and Hoffman. Both victims are Democrats and Hortman was formerly the Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
The FBI has put out a wanted poster offering a $50,000 reward for anyone who is able to provide information that would lead to the perpetrators arrest:
It is now Sunday and there hasn’t been a huge amount of updates. The reports simply say that the manhunt continues.
It goes without saying that this, among MANY other things, does have a chilling effect on speech in general. Specifically, if you voice a particular political perspective, this incident opens up the possibility that someone could try to end your life. After all, president Trump did everything he could to dial up the temperature throughout the No Kings protest. He did call it a riot and argued that his military crackdown is needed. This was bolstered by one of his officials saying that they fully intend on forcefully removing California lawmakers because of their political leanings. So, in retrospect, is it entirely surprising that you see what you see in the news this weekend? Maybe not. It’s not something you wanted to see, but it is something that happened after months of rising tensions being built up by the Trump administration in his quest to crack down on those he disagrees with. It really sucks to see this happening.
