Court records reveal that the man who shot and killed two police officers and a firefighter in a neighborhood surrounded by trees in the Minneapolis area was not legally permitted to possess firearms due to a prior assault conviction. He was also embroiled in a protracted legal battle for the custody and financial support of his three eldest children.
Authorities named Shannon Gooden, 38, as the shooter on Monday. Gooden opened fire on police in Burnsville, an affluent neighborhood, after they responded to a report about a domestic dispute early on Sunday.
According to the unnamed caller, Gooden had locked himself in his house with his family, which included seven kids between the ages of two and fifteen. Hours later, he was discovered dead inside the house.
Authorities claim that Gooden killed Adam Finseth, 40, a fireman and paramedic assigned to the city’s SWAT squad, as well as Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27. Sgt. Adam Medlicott, another cop, was shot and hurt.
Just two days before to a district court hearing regarding his ongoing legal difficulties with the mother of his three eldest children, Gooden got into a standoff with the police. Robert Manson, the lawyer for Gooden in that legal issue, did not answer a call for comment. A phone number for a lady listed as Gooden’s girlfriend in court documents was unanswered on Monday night.
According to court documents, Gooden was prohibited by law from owning firearms after entering a guilty plea to second-degree assault with a deadly weapon in 2008, when he was 22 years old. In a Burnsville shopping mall parking lot, he allegedly flung rocks and cut a man with a knife, according to the prosecution.
It’s unclear exactly how Gooden died, and authorities have not released any information on the call that took police to his residence on Sunday. However, it appears from court documents that he looked after seven children: the two younger children with another woman, the two older children by her, and the two children from her prior relationship.
Additionally, according to court documents, his arguments over who should raise his three oldest children had become more heated. Noemi Torres, their mother, branded him “controlling” and accused him of beating her and the kids after he accused her of neglecting them.
Torres said to KARE-TV that their three children—a daughter, fourteen, and two boys, fifteen,—were inside the home at the time of the standoff. She added that before Gooden began firing, her daughter had put on earmuffs, and that’s when she wasn’t afraid until he asked, “Do you want to come with me?” which meant “die with me.“
Moreover, Torres revealed to KARE-TV that Gooden had earlier threatened to shoot police if she dialled 911 on him. Brief clips from the interview that KARE-TV shared on social media purportedly cite him as saying, “I’m going to have a standoff,” according to Torres. “I’m going to murder everyone.”
After the 2007 incident, in which they claimed Gooden followed a young woman and her cousin from a mall to a parking lot and threatened to cut their tyres, prosecutors had blocked Gooden’s attempt to regain his ability to carry a revolver.
Prosecutors stated that after Gooden raced at the woman’s brother with a knife and was disarmed by a security guard, he threw pebbles at the sibling before driving off quickly in his own car. In 2013, Gooden completed his five-year probationary period for the assault allegation from 2007.
In 2020, after his unsuccessful court plea to reinstate his gun rights, he and his legal representative said he had grown up and regretted his earlier bad choices. In August 2020, a longtime friend wrote to the judge, “He is a good man to his peers and his family.”
“With the goodness of his heart, he has personally helped many others, including me, get through some really difficult times.” “I greatly regret and have learned from the poor decisions of my past,” Gooden stated in a sworn statement. I’d desire another opportunity to establish my worth as a contributing member of society.
The California Examiner is the sole source offering up-to-date information on California news.
All of our most recent posts are collected here:
- Tragic Tragedy Near Minneapolis Claims the Lives of Two Police Officers and One Firefighter!
- Super Bowl Parade Gunfire at Kansas City Chiefs Game Leads to Charges for Two Minors!
