The suspect in the shooting deaths of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband was arrested Sunday evening.

TV station KSTP reported that Vance Boelter, 57, was taken alive around 9 p.m. CDT in the woods near Green Isle, Minnesota, a farm community about an hour west of Minneapolis where he had a home.

Earlier Sunday, authorities had found a few miles from Mr. Boelter’s Green Isle home a car they believed he had been using. He was reportedly spotted by a drone Sunday evening and quickly surrendered voluntarily.

Mr. Boelter is suspected in four shootings Saturday in the Minneapolis area.

Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed at their Brooklyn Park home. Shortly afterward, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot in their Champlin home, though they survived and are expected to recover.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said Mrs. Hoffman was “out of surgery first” and had “actually texted some of our mutual friends.” Ms. Klobuchar said Mr. Hoffman “may face some additional surgeries, but he is also in stable condition right now from what I know.”

Law enforcement officials said Mr. Boelter posed as a police officer and wore a ballistic vest and mask to hide his identity when he killed the Hortmans. Ms. Hortman had previously served six years as speaker of the Minnesota House.

Both lawmakers were Democrats and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz had said the shootings were politically motivated. Investigators said the shooter wrote a manifesto that included the names of elected officials, including prominent pro-choice leaders and many Democratic lawmakers.

State Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, said Sunday his name was on “the one with the political folks on it.”

“There clearly was some throughline with abortion because of the groups that were on the list,” Ms. Klobuchar said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “So that was one of his motivations. But again, they’re also checking out, did he have interaction somehow with these without legislators? Is there more to this?”

David Carlson, who identified himself as Mr. Boelter’s roommate and considered him his best friend, having known him since childhood, said Mr. Boelter was struggling mentally and financially after leaving his job to pursue business ventures in Congo.

“He kept things inside,” Mr. Carlson told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “He’s been kind of down. He was not as upbeat as he usually is.”

He said he received a text from Mr. Boelter around 6 a.m. Saturday, suggesting he would be dead shortly, and telling Mr. Carlson he loved him. Mr. Carlson said he found Mr. Boelter’s suspected involvement in the shootings unbelievable.

Mr. Carlson told reporters over the weekend that Mr. Boelter opposed abortion and supported President Trump.

The Star Tribune reported that the Rev. Mcnay Nkashama, who organized the missionary trips to Africa that Mr. Boelter joined, said he was “trying to make sense of what might have triggered all of this.”

“I am extremely confused,” he told the newspaper. “I’ve known him long enough to be highly shocked.”

Videos circulating online appear to show Mr. Boelter delivering sermons at a Christian church in Congo. They showed him railing against transgenderism and same-sex marriage in the United States.

However, the political indicators weren’t all pointing one way.

Minnesota police said the fake police car they found had a stack of flyers titled “No Kings,” the name of anti-Trump protests across the nation Saturday.

Law enforcement officials said, based on the manifesto, that it would be “premature” to determine a motivation based on it and that they would not be releasing it while the investigation was ongoing.

Also, Mr. Boelter had served on the governor’s bipartisan Workforce Development Council. Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, appointed him to the panel in 2016, and Mr. Walz reappointed him in 2019.

Ms. Klobuchar said Sunday that the deadly shooting demands that elected leaders tone down the political rhetoric.

“People need to call out people,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union. “Some people need to look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, I have to stop this or stop my colleagues from doing this because it makes it much worse.’”

The Democrat signaled an interest in creating new rules to crack down on online activity that stokes political violence and incentivizes copycat crimes.

Ms. Klobuchar said threats against elected officials have jumped from 1,700 in 2016 to 9,000 last year.

“So, more has to be done on that front and, of course, more has to be done to protect elected officials, regardless of party,” she said.

Asked during a separate appearance on CNN whether members of Congress should receive security details, Sen. Tina Smith, Minnesota Democrat, said, “I can’t bear to think that it has come to that.”

“But I think we are at a tipping point right now,” Ms. Smith said.

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.

• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.