Vance Boelter was preoccupied with societal problems and how he could fix them to serve the greater good, according to some of his previous writings and the man who worked with Boelter for more than a decade doing web design for a series of his projects.

Friends and neighbors of the 57-year-old say they are struggling to understand what drove him to allegedly masquerade as a police officer and shoot two state legislators and their spouses in the predawn hours of Saturday.