Minnesota shooting suspect didn’t have ‘hit list’ with Illinois names, Pritzker says
Minnesota shooting suspect didn’t have ‘hit list’ with Illinois names, Pritzker says
Gov. JB Pritzker said on Monday that investigators on the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers over the weekend did not see any active threat to Illinois officials.
CHICAGO - Gov. JB Pritzker said on Monday that investigators on the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers over the weekend did not see any active threat to Illinois officials.
He specified that while the names of some Illinois officials were found in the records of the alleged shooter, Vance Boelter, there was no "hit list" with the names of politicians from Illinois.
What we know:
Pritzker said he was told that as investigators went to Boelter’s home, they recovered devices and other "paper" that had on them more than 600 names, but it was "more of a hodge-podge, a few people here, a few people there, websites he had visited, et cetera."
The governor said as far as he understood, the people whose names were found in those records were not targets of the alleged gunman.
"No one the FBI specifically said to me that these people were not targets," Pritzker said.
He added that after Boelter’s arrest, investigators were not worried that the people whose names were found in the suspect’s records were targets for violence.
What they're saying:
A spokesperson from the Illinois State Police said Monday there were "no broader threats at this time."
ISP added it’s "vetting information found among the suspect's property, and provided to ISP by Minnesota and federal law enforcement agencies, as it relates to Illinois elected officials, potentially in both paper and electronic form. ISP will continue to communicate with Illinois legislators as additional information is available and assessed."
Fox 32 spoke with retired FBI agent Ross Rice about the case.
"It would be malpractice if they didn't reach out," Ross said. "And what exactly they're telling them, other than they were on a list of somebody that killed one state legislator and tried to kill another, I don't know. A lot of details haven't come out."
He added, "This is really the beginning of the investigation."
Minnesota officials did say that investigators recovered a book containing the names of more than 45 state and federal officials from Minnesota.