the man who later died fatal shot Two police officers and a firefighter in a wooded area of the Minneapolis area are unable to legally own guns due to past assault convictions and have lost custody and financial protection for their three older children. Court records show that he has been embroiled in a years-long battle over support.
Authorities arrested Shannon Gooden, 38, on Monday. fired at the police early Sunday morning in the affluent suburb of Burnsville after responding to a call of a domestic disturbance. An unidentified caller reported that Gooden barricaded himself in his home with his family, including seven children between the ages of 2 and 15, and was found dead inside his home several hours later. .
Authorities said Gooden killed Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and Adam Finseth, 40, a firefighter and EMT who was part of the city's SWAT team. Killed. Another officer, Sgt. Adam Medlicott was shot and wounded.
Gooden's confrontation with police occurred just two days before a scheduled District Court hearing in an ongoing legal dispute with the mother of his three older children. Robert Manson, an attorney representing Mr. Gooden in the dispute, did not respond to a phone message seeking comment. On Monday night, he called a woman listed in court records as Gooden's girlfriend, but there was no response.
After the 22-year-old Gooden pleaded guilty to second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in 2008, the state banned him from owning a gun, according to court records. Prosecutors say the man threw rocks and held a knife at a man in the parking lot of a Burnsville shopping mall.
Authorities have not released details It's not clear exactly how he died after a Sunday call that brought police to Gooden's home. But court records show he supports seven children, three older with one woman and two with another. This includes two children from a previous relationship.
Court records also show that his dispute over the custody of his eldest three children had become increasingly contentious. He accused her mother, Noemi Torres, of neglect, and she called him “controlling” and accused him of abusing her and her children.
Torres told KARE-TV that her three children, two boys ages 12 and 15 and her 14-year-old daughter, were in the home during the standoff. She said her daughter told Torres that Gooden had put earmuffs on her before they started filming, and that she was scared until Gooden asked, “Do you want to go with me?” She said there was no such thing. That means she will die with him.
Torres also told KARE-TV that Gooden had previously told police he would shoot her if she called 911.
“I'm going to be confrontational,” Torres said, according to excerpts of a brief interview posted on social media by KARE-TV. “I'll kill everyone.”
Prosecutors opposed Gooden's efforts to restore his gun rights after a 2007 incident in which he allegedly followed a young woman and her cousin from a shopping mall to a parking lot and threatened to slash their tires. Was. Prosecutors said Gooden lunged at the woman's brother with a knife, but a security guard disarmed him, and Gooden threw a rock at his brother before fleeing in his car.
Gooden completed a five-year suspended sentence for assault in 2007 and completed his sentence in 2013.
When he unsuccessfully petitioned the courts to restore his gun rights in 2020, he and his attorney said he had grown up and regretted his past poor decisions.
One longtime friend told the judge in August 2020: “He is a good man to his associates and family. Through his kindness of heart, he touched me and many others personally during a very difficult time. He guided me,” he wrote.
Mr. Gooden said in a sworn statement: “I deeply regret and have learned from my past poor decisions. I would like a second chance to prove myself to be a capable member of society.”
