Lawmakers’ Attacks: American Security Forces Intensify Manhunt
American security forces, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are intensifying their manhunt for the suspect behind the killing of a female lawmaker and her husband on Saturday.
The suspect, 57- year old Vance L. Boelter, a private security operative, equally shot another law maker and his wife, though both survived and have successfully undergone surgeries.
Boelter, for reasons that are yet to be clarified, but which state officials say could be political, shot the lawmakers and their spouses in their residences.
Officials believe that he posed as a cop to access Minnesota congresswoman, Melissa Hortman and her husband, John.
Both died instantly.
After attacking Hortmans, Boelter reportedly escaped in a decoyed police truck and attacked another lawmaker, State Senator John Hoffman and his wife , Yvette, though both survived.
Thereafter, he escaped, taking along his weapon and what police suspect of being a large cache of ammunition.
The police later recovered a list of his targets, said to be dozens in number, and have since become elusive.
The FBI and other security agencies are understood to have cast a nationwide dragnet in an effort to pick him.
Boelter reportedly runs a private security company and had allegedly helped train American soldiers on military drills, especially battlefield tactics, and police say that his reckonable knowledge of security tactics could make tracking him more difficult.
The shootings have split American public opinion, especially against the backdrop of the fact that both his actual and potential targets are Democrats, many of whom oppose many of the policies of President Donald Trump.
Many interests, especially civil society groups and human rights activists, have dubbed Trump dictatorial and intolerant of the opposition.
The shootings happened on the day Trump was marking his 79th birthday with funfair, and the American Army was marking its 250th establishment with a high brow parade that reportedly cost $25m( about N3.2billion).
The parade, which featured military hardware and thousands of troops, held as hundreds of thousands of Americans held a “No kings” protest against what they termed the increasingly monarchical tendencies of Trump.
The protests were held in more than 400 centres across all 50 states of the country.
