The targeted attacks that left a minnesota state representative and her dead husband and seriously injured a state senator and his wife rocked politicians across the country and Colorado.
“Make no mistake, politically motivated violence, assassinations and attempts at the life of elected officials are not America that we know, we will hold darling and loves,” Governor Jared Polis said in a statement. “We must continue to reject the division policy and the rhetoric that have become too widespread in our country.”
Polis called for a complete prosecution of anyone involved in the attack and said that Colorado was ready to offer any necessary assistance to Minnesota.
In his role as head of the National Governors Association, Polis, as well as his vice-president, the republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, published a joint declaration, calling on the American people to reject political violence.
“These attacks are not only attacks on individuals, these are attacks (on) our communities and the very foundation of our democracy.”
The Minnesota Democratic representative, Melissa Hortman, former president of the room, and her husband, Mark, were killed during a shootout early in their home in a suburbs of Minneapolis. Investigators believe that the same suspect shot senator John Hoffman, also a democrat, and his wife, Yvette, at their home at nine kilometers.
The feeling that the assassination and the assassination attempt constituted an attack on democracy were taken up by the Coloradans through the political spectrum.
“This is an act of unreasonable violence,” said the chief of the republican minority of Colorado’s house, Rose Pugliese in a press release. “There is absolutely no justification for the targeted attacks against elected officials – or anyone -based on their political convictions. Our nation was built on civilian discourse and the peaceful exchange of ideas, not horrible acts of violence. We keep the families of the Hortman representative and the Hoffman senator in our prayers. ”
“The targeted attacks in Minnesota are a dark example of the way in which violent rhetoric can turn into violent actions,” said the president of the Colorado Senate, James Coleman. “There is room for healthy disagreements and debate, but we must never turn to violence against our political opponents.”
Colorado has seen its share of political violence over the years. In 2013, a conditional release with links with a white supremacist prison gang The head of the murdered colorado prisons On the step of his monument house. Six years earlier, in 2007, state soldiers drawn and killed an armed man Apart from the governor’s office. The man, who declared himself “the emperor”, seemed to be in a mental health crisis.
Threats against state legislators and other elected officials have become common in recent years. Members of the legislature have been threatened To support the laws on firearms and vaccination requirements, for the jokes they have made on social networks and to be important personalities in public debates.
Current threats against Secretary of State Jena Griswold for his opposition to President Donald Trump and his support for the Colorado electoral system led him to look for more security for herself and other elected officials on the scale of the state. Last month, a man from Colorado was sentenced to three years in prison To threaten Griswold and others.
On social networks, the Democratic members of Congress Colorado used words as “devastated”, “the broken heart”, “terrifying” and “horrified” to describe their response to the attacks of Minnesota.
State Republicans also spoke.
“All assassinations or attacks with political motivation must be condemned,” wrote representative Lauren Boebert, a republican member of the State Congress, on social networks. “My family and I pray for relatives of the representatives of the state of Minnesota, Hortman and Hoffman during this tragic period. May God bless them. “
The representatives of the Gop Jeff Crank, Jeff Hurd and Gabe Evans Alll posted on the X social media platform that they fully condemn the attack and said that their prayers were with the legislators and their families.