Saturday was a very dark day in Minnesota.

The news of the assassination of a member of the Minnesota Legislature and the attempted assassination of a second member sent shock waves through the state and the nation. Former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were gunned down in their Brooklyn Park home early Saturday morning. Meanwhile, Sen. John Hoffman, also a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were each shot multiple times and survived. They are both currently recovering in a Twin Cities hospital.

“We are incredibly lucky to be alive,” Yvette Hoffman said in a statement after waking up in the hospital.

Meanwhile, the manhunt conducted by more 100 law enforcement personnel successfully ended on Sunday night with the arrest of 57-year-old Vance Boelter. Apparently law enforcement personnel took in evidence a list of other political targets that included the state’s two U.S. senators and DFL Congressional members.

The nightmare that Boelter allegedly unleashed on the Great state of Minnesota highlights the current state of politics in this divided nation. Social media and TV political attacks tend to dehumanize our politicians to the point their lives don’t matter to some American citizens.

But they do matter.

Two families will never be the same. Two children lost a father and a mother. A daughter will never be the same after being protected by a mother from the bullets that sprayed upon them.

While we don’t expect this weekend’s tragedy will change the ugly rhetoric that plagues our nation, a positive step was taken by our Minnesota Congressional delegation. The entire Minnesota delegation of Michelle Fischbach, Tom Emmer, Pete Stauber, Brad Finstad, Angie Craig, Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, Kelly Morrison and senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith released a joint statement Saturday afternoon:

“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically-motivated violence. We are praying for John and Yvette’s recovery and we grieve the loss of Melissa and Mark with their family, colleagues, and Minnesotans across the state. We are grateful for law enforcement’s swift response to the situation and continued efforts.”  

Each of them released the statement in their emailings. At the bottom of Fischbach’s email the following was stated:

Michelle Fischbach is a wife, mom, grandma, attorney, and the U.S. Representative for Minnesota’s Seventh Congressional District.

We are appreciate Rep. Fischbach adding that sentence at the bottom of her email. It’s a sentence that could have been added to emailings sent by each one of those members in that delegation.

It should mean something to all of us.