There have been 50 threats so far this year to Minnesota officials State Patrol Lt. Colonel Jeremy Geiger reported during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Capitol Area Security earlier this week.
The meeting Monday was the third since the assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, as well as the attempted assassination of Sen. John Hoffman, his wife Yvette and their daughter Hope on June 14.
Geiger said the Capitol received 19 threats in 2024, and that in 2025, the State Patrol has already received 50 threats — 13 of which have resulted in criminal charges. In response, he said the State Patrol is appointing one of their officers in December to work with the BCA to investigate those threats.
“We’re not going to stop, we’re not going to kind of throw up our hands at some point and say, ‘Well, we’re done. Now we can just move on,’ ” he said. “This has been and will be a constant commitment to not only the people in this room but … the public who come and visit, everybody who comes on to this complex.”
Two of those threats made headlines following the lawmaker shootings in June. On June 17, a man was arrested and charged with allegedly threatening violence at the Capitol. On July 25, another man broke into the Capitol on several occasions and was found naked in the Senate Chamber.
Also Monday, the committee discussed other states’ open carry policies, heard from a firm that is working on a third-party review of the Capitol’s security and discussed whether lawmakers should be practicing active shooter drills in their chambers.
“This is something where we all should be prepared. And you know, know that this is never anything that we want to have to face, but we need to be ready,” said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, chair of the committee. “And unfortunately, there are second and third graders who are familiar with how to conduct themselves in an incident like this. We also need to … be ready.”
The State Patrol has hired 20 new Capitol security officers who will start training in November, Geiger said. Other security changes include updated cameras and “security kiosks.”
The advisory committee is expected to meet again in “about a month,” Flanagan said Monday. The committee is expected to send recommendations to the Legislature for any security updates to the Capitol to potentially be passed in the 2026 session.
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