Bill to make impersonating police a felony passes in Minnesota House
A bill that would stiffen penalties for impersonating police in the wake of last year's Minnesota lawmaker shootings passed unanimously in the state House on Thursday.
The bill, which has the backing of state law enforcement organizations, would make it a felony to pretend to be a cop with the intent to mislead. It would also increase penalties for other crimes committed while doing so and require law enforcement in uniform to identify their agency, last name and badge number.
The measure is in response to the June 14, 2025, attacks that killed former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. Prosecutors said the accused assassin, Vance Boelter, who faces criminal charges, wore a disguise with a fake police car equipped with lights when he showed up at their homes in the middle of the night.
"Both [Sen. Ann Rest] and I would've opened that door because we trust our police departments. We believe they are the good guys — embedded in us since we are small that this the cavalry coming to save us," said Rep. Kristin Bahner, DFL-Maple Grove. "That is the particularly heinous nature of what happened on June 14."
Boelter, according to authorities, also visited Bahner and Rest homes that night before the Hortmans were killed; Bahner was not there at the time and a New Hope Police officer encountered Boelter while going to do a wellness check on Rest and he drove away.
Hoffman is the sponsor of a similar measure in the Senate, which is still advancing through the committee process. He and Yvette were shot a combined 17 times and their daughter Hope "narrowly avoided being struck by bullets," according to court documents filed earlier this month in the family's civil suit against Boelter.
"I was almost killed. My wife was almost killed. My daughter had a gun placed in her face by an individual who looked like a police officer, had a vehicle that looked like a police vehicle, yelled 'this is police,' license plate said 'police' on it. I was hearing everything that you think a police officer is," said John Hoffman last month while testifying in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. "He was not a police officer."
Hoffman also introduced a bill this session that would make it mandatory for used police vehicles to have all equipment and markings removed before being resold to those not in law enforcement.
Boelter faces multiple charges of murder and attempted murder on both the state and federal levels, and could face the death penalty.