After legal fight, Hennepin County, Minnesota, releases 911 transcript from attempted political assassination
Published in News & Features
MINNEAPOLIS — A largely unredacted 911 transcript capturing the first moments of the shooting rampage allegedly carried out by Vance Boelter against Minnesota politicians this summer was released on Monday.
The transcript had been at the center of a legal dispute between law enforcement in Hennepin County and various media organizations in Minnesota, including the Star Tribune, over what information needed to be released under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. Two state agencies sided with the media, leading to the release of the transcript.
Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot in the doorway of their Champlin home at 2 a.m. on June 14. Their daughter, Hope Hoffman, called 911 at 2:05 a.m. and relayed critical information to law enforcement while providing aid to her parents, who both survived the attack.
The Star Tribune reported details of the 911 call in July, but the transcript offers a vivid description of Hope Hoffman’s effort to save her parents.
After giving a 911 dispatcher the address and saying her parents had been shot, Hope explains that a man dressed as “fake police” came to their door. When asked if she knew the shooter, Hope replies, “No, they were masked!” While begging for first responders to hurry, she explains the family has cameras outside their house that might have caught the shooter’s getaway vehicle.
She then describes how a man came to the door pretending to be police and rang the doorbell “a million times.” She said the family didn’t realize it wasn’t a police officer and the man was in a mask until “it was too late.”
She continually asks her parents how they are doing and to keep speaking to her while they wait for first responders. She tells the dispatcher that the shooter came at her father because he was a state politician.
After shooting the Hoffmans, Boelter then allegedly went to the homes of two other state politicians before killing Rep. Melissa Hortman, her husband, Mark, and the family dog, Gilbert, at their home in Brooklyn Center.
Boelter stands federally indicted on six counts, including stalking and murder, which carries the possibility of the death penalty, along with state charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office had denied multiple requests for the unredacted transcript, saying it was confidential because it contained health records and nonpublic data from an active criminal investigation.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office supported that decision, providing a letter and exhibits to Minnesota Data Practices Director Taya Moxley-Goldsmith arguing a redacted transcript released in July was sufficient and none of the redacted information should be made public.
Black bars covered the bulk of the text in the redacted transcript. It contained no information outside of the Hoffman’s home address, that John and Yvette Hoffman had been shot and help was on the way.
Attorney Isabella Salomão Nascimento represented KARE 11, KSTP TV and the Star Tribune and argued the redacted transcript was not sufficient based on state law.
Salomão Nascimento wrote that previous opinions on this topic had ruled that “911 calls are not data that law enforcement agencies create or collect” to build an investigative case but are calls for public services. On top of that, the Sheriff’s Office was not the primary investigators of the shooting and could not legally deny the request for an unredacted transcript.
The Minnesota Commissioner of Administration, which oversees the state’s data access, sided with the media organizations in September and said the Sheriff’s Office had not responded appropriately “when it initially denied the request and when it subsequently provided a redacted transcript.”
Sheriff Dawanna Witt appealed that decision to the Attorney General’s Office. On Monday night, that office declined to issue an opinion, saying there was nothing wrong with the decision by the Commissioner of Administration.
The 911 call was released shortly thereafter.
Hennepin County wasn’t forced to release the transcript — and small sections remain redacted — but Minnesota legal statutes show if the media organizations prevailed in suing Hennepin County to release the transcript, the county would have been subject to paying all attorney’s fees and potentially face a $1,000 penalty.
How information was shared among law enforcement in the immediate wake of the shooting of the Hoffmans has yet to be publicly addressed.
A New Hope police officer “self-dispatched” to the home of Sen. Ann Rest about 30 minutes after the shooting, but officials have declined to answer questions about the circumstances that led the officer to Rest’s home.
Federal investigators allege that the officer encountered Boelter sitting outside Rest’s home, wearing a silicone mask and refusing to answer questions. Sen. Jim Abeler said police arrived at his door in Anoka at 3 a.m. to warn him of the risk.
Brooklyn Park police arrived at the Hortman’s home at 3:35 a.m. as Boelter allegedly shot Mark Hortman in the doorway. Boelter then allegedly entered the home and killed Melissa Hortman and shot the dog, who was later euthanized. Boelter escaped almost immediately, leading to the largest manhunt in state history.
He was arrested 40 hours later, 60 miles away in a field near his home in Green Isle, Minn.
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©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
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