(18 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
St. Paul, Minnesota – 17 June 2025
1. Woman brining flowers to memorial for Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman
2. Various of memorial
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Natalie Cherne, Organizer:
“We lost somebody really good. We lost somebody who actually cared about Minnesotans. Not just somebody who cared about the soundbite. We lost somebody who loved this state. Who took votes that were hard and critical. But who did the work.”
4. Note left at memorial
5. Aidan Wippich visiting memorial
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Aidan Wippich, Former Minnesota House intern:
“I was interested in politics already, but I really looked up to her. She’s inspired me to become so much more than what I was before.”
7. Various of people visiting memorial
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Aidan Wippich, Former Minnesota House intern:
“I think it’s more important now than ever to be more united than we are–as we are divided right now.”
9. Exterior capitol building
10. Minnesota flag at half-staff
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Kali Courtney, Former Minnesota Senate page:
“Obviously, when you’re working in a space where tensions are so high, now that fear will really be in the back of my mind. I do have friends and family who are very worried that I work in this space but at the end of the day the fight has to go on, right?”
12. Sign at indoor memorial
13. People leaving flowers at indoor memorial
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Natalie Cherne, Organizer:
“I wrote on my note saying ‘Thank you for everything. We got it.’ We got this. We will take up the fight now.”
15. Hortman’s desk on house floor
STORYLINE:
Mourners nestled sticky notes amongst flowers at a growing memorial for Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman on the steps of the Minnesota Capitol on Tuesday.
Among them was organizer Natalie Cherne, who said she door knocked for many of the campaigns and progressive causes Hortman has championed.
“We lost somebody really good. We lost somebody who actually cared about Minnesotans. Not just somebody who cared about the soundbite. We lost somebody who loved this state. Who took votes that were hard and critical. But who did the work,” Cherne said.
Elected to the Minnesota House in 2004, she helped pass liberal initiatives like free lunches for public school students in 2023 as the chamber’s speaker. This year, she helped break a budget impasse that threatened to shut down state government.
Former Minnesota House intern Aidan Wippich recalled Hortman ability to build connections with people, regardless of their political affiliation.
“I was interested in politics already, but I really looked up to her. She’s inspired me to become so much more than what I was before,” Wippich said. “I think it’s more important now than ever to be more united than we are–as we are divided right now.”
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot in their home early Saturday morning by a man posing as a police officer in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center.
Fifty-seven-year-old Vance Boelter faces federal murder and stalking charges related to the Hortmans’ deaths. Authorities say he also shot and wounded Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in a nearby neighborhood that same morning. They also said he visited the homes of two other state legislators but did not encounter them, and officials in other states reported Monday that they were on his list of targets
Former Minnesota Senate page Kali Courtney said the violence and threatening rhetoric are weighing on her.
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