Details about services for Paul Elmstrand, Matthew Ruge and Adam Finseth could come this week. The family in the home at the time has had to move, a relative said.

By Paul Walsh

The Minnesota Star Tribune

February 21, 2024 at 10:39PM

Taylor Jacobs, center, who was with Burnsville police for 10 years, embraced honor guard members Tuesday outside the Ballad-Sunder Funeral and Cremation in Jordan. “They’re the best men in the world,” said Jacobs of his fellow officers. “It was an honor to work with all of them.” (AARON LAVINSKY/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Officials confirmed Tuesday that Shannon Cortez Gooden killed himself after fatally shooting two Burnsville police officers and a medic during a standoff over the weekend.

In a news release issued before dawn, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Gooden, 38, died by suicide with a single gunshot to the head inside the house in the 12600 block of S. 33rd Avenue.

The Medical Examiner’s Office did not reveal the time that Gooden shot himself, but emergency dispatch audio suggests he took his own life around 6:45 a.m., when an officer radioed: “Shots fired from inside.”

Shannon Cortez Gooden (Facebook )

About 10 minutes later, a dispatcher notified officers on the scene that a caller from inside the house disclosed that Gooden is “in the bedroom. … He just shot himself in the head.”

Killed were officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, 40. Wounded was 38-year-old Sgt. Adam Medlicott. Officials said Monday that Medlicott was treated at HCMC and was recovering at home.

Late Monday afternoon, the Medical Examiner’s Office said Elmstrand, Ruge and Finseth were all declared dead from homicide at HCMC between 6:33 a.m. and 6:46 a.m. on Sunday. Ruge was shot in the chest. Multiple gunshots hit Elmstrand, and Finseth was shot in the right arm and torso, the examiner’s office said.

No details have been released yet on memorial services for the officers and the medic.

Brian Hubbard, president of the Minnesota Law Enforcement Memorial Association, said he and others met Monday with family members of the shooting victims. The association is handling the funeral arrangements.

“Just as you would expect,” Hubbard, who also is deputy police chief in Crystal, told the Star Tribune, “they are in a state of shock and bewilderment.”

A sister of the woman who was living in the home with Gooden gave an update on how the family is faring in the aftermath of the standoff and shooting.

The woman and her children “are safe today because of [the officers’] heroic actions,” Madison Weimar posted in an online fundraising campaign she started on the family’s behalf.

“My sister Ashley is a loving and caring stay at home mom of four biological children and three stepchildren,” Weimar continued. “A serious and shocking chain of events has caused significant damage to the household, therefore, my sister and her children no longer have a place to call home. [They] are staying with family in the meantime as we navigate our next move forward.”

Gooden’s shooting spree was with a gun or guns he was banned from owning, stemming from a conviction for an assault in a Burnsville parking lot in 2007.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is leading the investigation into the deaths of the officers and medic, which have prompted an outpouring of grief from law enforcement and Minnesotans alike. They are the latest in a string of violence toward first responders in the region in recent months.

One aspect of the investigation could be how Gooden acquired the gun that he is believed to have used Sunday, given the lifetime ban he was under.

In August 2020, Gooden petitioned the court in vain to regain his right to own a gun. He explained that he wanted to protect himself and his family, according to court records. He also told the court he hadn’t been convicted of any further serious crimes, had taken anger management and parenting classes, advanced his education, maintained steady employment in the auto repair business for many years “and provided for his long-term girlfriend, her two children and his five children.”

The Dakota County Attorney’s Office countered that along with the assault conviction, Gooden “had additional encounters with police involving assaults, disorderly conduct and numerous traffic violations demonstrating a continued disregard to obey the law.”

The County Attorney’s Office also pointed to two petitions for orders for protection filed against him by women with whom he shared children. The woman told the court that on Oct. 30, 2017, Gooden gave her a concussion and a black eye with a head-butt, and also threw her down the stairs.

The other woman said in her petition that on July 7, 2020, Gooden grabbed a knife while they argued “and cut her clothes and swiped her foot,” sending her down the stairs. At times, the woman continued, he would pull her hair, throw her against the wall and “even let family members assault [her].”

Neither woman successfully obtained an order for protection. In the 2017 filing, the woman who lived with Gooden at the time of the shooting failed to appear for a hearing. A judge dismissed the second petition for lack of evidence.

The Burnsville house where two police officers and a paramedic were shot and killed by a gunman sat boarded up Monday. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)