'Incredibly lucky to be alive”: Minnesota Senator, his wife share harrowing ordeal of near-fatal shooting

Minnesota state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman, recounted the terrifying morning of almost a week ago when a man wearing a silicone mask who knocked at their door and presented himself as a police officer repeatedly shot them. In a statement issued Thursday night and shared with CNN affiliate KARE, the couple publicly recounts for the first time the targeted shooting in their Champlin, Minnesota, residence that left them both critically wounded.

The night before the shooting, the Hoffmans returned home from a dinner party given by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and went to bed, the statement said. But they were awakened about 2 am by someone banging on the front door and shouting, asking to come in and identifying himself a police officer, the family said.

As the door was opened, the couple and their daughter, Hope, were standing in the doorway. When the gunman aimed a gun straight at John Hoffman, the senator lunged at the gunman, and was shot nine times, the statement said.

That's when Hope Hoffman ran to close the door and lock it. She then dialed 911 and informed the operator that the senator had been shot inside his residence, which marked "the notice to public safety officials that a politically-motivated act was potentially underway," the family said.

Prosecutors allege suspected shooter Vance Boelter made at least four visits to the residences of Minnesota legislators, trying to kill the Hoffmans and killing state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman.

Following the attack, both John and Yvette Hoffman were operated on, officials said. John Hoffman 'is in critical but stable condition; Yvette Hoffman is in stable condition, as well," the family release said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told journalists at a function he had anticipated Yvette Hoffman's release from hospital that day. There is no one with the name Yvette currently at Mercy Hospital, where she had been admitted following the shooting, an Allina Health spokesperson was quoted saying to CNN.

“As John fell, Yvette reached out to push the man and shut the door,” and “she was also hit eight times by gunfire,” the statement said.

Earlier this week, Yvette Hoffman informed US Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a text message that she and her husband were "incredibly lucky to be alive," Klobuchar posted on her social media. Yvette said at the time her husband had endured “many surgeries” and is “closer every hour to being out of the woods.”

The Hoffman family said in their release they are greatly appreciative "for the first responders and for all those in law enforcement who worked so swiftly, professionally and selflessly to protect others and to arrest the shooter, beginning with our very own officers in Champlin and Brooklyn Park."

They added that they are ‘heartbroken’ by the killing of Melissa and Mark Hortman. Hope Hoffman went to school with their daughter, Sophie Hortman. “We know that they – along with Colin Hortman - will have each other’s support as we all work through the devastating consequences of that horrific night,” John and Yvette Hoffman said.