Childhood friend says Minnesota suspect had 'darkness inside of him'

Hours after the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers over the weekend, authorities asked David Carlson to identify his lifelong friend in a harrowing photograph.

Carlson says he had known and trusted Vance Boelter from the time the two played together as children. But he barely recognized the 57-year-old in the surveillance image police showed him of Boelter wearing a flesh-colored mask as he carried out what authorities described as a political rampage.

“The guy with the mask, I don’t know that guy,” Carlson said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, recounting his decades-long friendship with a man he likened to a brother. Boelter's involvement in such an attack, he said, was as surprising to him as “getting struck by lightning.”

“There was a darkness that was inside of him," Carlson said. "He must have kept it hidden."

As authorities piece together Boelter's movements and motivations, Carlson and others are conducting their own inventory of their interactions with the one-time pastor, wondering whether they missed any red flags.

Boelter is a married father of five but often stayed at Carlson's home in Minneapolis to shorten his commute to work. In hindsight, Carlson said, Boelter “was a sick man” and needed help, even if those around him didn't realize it in time.

Law enforcement has cautioned the motive could be more complex than pundits might prefer, even as Boelter's own disjointed writings suggest he was hell-bent on targeting Democrats.

Boelter has been charged with federal murder and stalking, along with state counts, in the fatal shootings of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. He is also accused of wounding Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

At the time of the shootings, Carlson said Boelter had been struggling to find work and was “disappointed” he wasn’t hearing back from people.

In February, Boelter abruptly quit his job delivering bodies from assisted living facilities to a funeral home and returned for several weeks to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he had founded several companies focused on farming and fishing.

“I thought it was a mistake for him to quit his job,” Carlson said. “I didn’t think he was going to get anywhere with the Congo.”

But the life change was in keeping with Boelter’s impetuous “mentality to always go to the extreme,” Carlson said, recalling a time in the 1990s when Boelter was captured by security forces after sneaking into Gaza to preach Christianity on a trip to Israel. “That’s how crazy Vance is,” Carlson said. “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Years earlier, after becoming a Christian, Boelter “burned all of his belongings,” Carlson said, including karate and martial arts weapons and anything else that distracted from his religion.

Boelter graduated in 1990 from an interdenominational Bible college in Dallas, earning a diploma in practical theology in leadership. The Christ For The Nations Institute said in a statement it was “aghast and horrified" to learn the suspect was among its alumni, saying “this is not who we are.”

The church Boelter attended outside Minneapolis has not responded to emails from AP but issued a similar statement condemning the shootings as “the opposite of what Jesus taught his followers to do.”

Boelter, who worked as a security contractor, offered a glimpse of his opposition to abortion in a 2023 sermon he gave in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying "they don’t know abortion is wrong in many churches.”

“He wasn’t a radical cultist," Carlson said. “He was just a regular Christian and kind of outspoken.”

Boelter was unrestrained when it came to his distaste for Democrats, Carlson said, but that rhetoric never seemed threatening. Carlson and another friend, Paul Schroeder, told AP they never heard Boelter talk about abortion or any of the officials who were targeted.

The FBI said Boelter “made lists containing the names and home addresses of many Minnesota public officials, mostly or all Democrats.”

“It wasn’t like, ‘We gotta stop them, man,’” Carlson said. “But it chills me to think he was in his room writing that stuff in my house.”

Boelter would go to a shooting range occasionally but was not fanatical about firearms, another friend, Paul Shroeder said.

“I thought he was just collecting them for self-defense," Carlson said. "It was 1,000 miles away from stalking people and killing them.”

Carlson said he awoke Saturday to an alarming text message from Boelter, who warned he was “going to be gone for a while,” and “may be dead shortly.” Carlson initially thought his friend was suicidal and went to check his room.

He said he was so concerned he called police, who “at first didn’t seem too interested" before quickly connecting the messages to the shootings.

“Why throw your whole life away? God, he’s so stupid," Carlson said. "He had everything.”

__ Associated Press writers Giovanna Dell'Orto in Minneapolis and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report.

David Carlson, Vance Boelter's best friend since fourth grade, tears up as he talks about Boelter outside their shared residence on Fremont Ave. N. in Minneapolis, Minn., Saturday, June 14, 2025. (Alex Kormann/Star Tribune via AP)

In this courtroom sketch, Vance Boelter, right, who is charged with killing one Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another, is seen at a federal court hearing Monday, June 16, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (Cedric Hohnstadt via AP)

This photo made available by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office shows Vance Luther Boelter, the man accused of assassinating the top Democrat in the Minnesota House, as he was arrested late Sunday, June 15, 2025. (Ramsey County Sheriff's Office via AP)

This booking photo provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office shows Vance Boelter in Green Isle, Minn., on June 16, 2025. (Hennepin County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Police tape blocks off the home of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, Sunday, June 15, 2025, in Brooklyn Park, Minn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Tire marks from police vehicles mark the lawn of suspect Vance Luther Boelter's home in Minneapolis on Saturday, June 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)