Shannon Cortez Gooden used multiple guns to fatally shoot two Burnsville police officers and a paramedic during a standoff at his home on Sunday before turning one of his weapons on himself and taking his life, according to a court document filed Wednesday.
The filing came on the same day that Grace Church in Eden Prairie told the Star Tribune that its 4,300-seat auditorium is the venue for a joint memorial service on Feb. 28 at 11 a.m. for the three men. More details were expected to be released later Wednesday by the state Department of Public Safety.
Newly disclosed details about the shooting were revealed in a search warrant affidavit filed by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), the lead agency investigating the shooting that killed officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, 40. A third officers, 38-year-old Sgt. Adam Medlicott is recovering at home from gunshot wounds.
The affidavit was filed by the BCA in pursuit of permission to search the cellphone of a woman whose children were among seven youngsters in the home at the time, but got out unharmed.
According to the affidavit, police were called to the home in the 12600 block of S. 33rd Avenue "regarding an alleged sexual assault allegation," the document read. Officers made contact with the person who made the allegation and with the 38-year-old Gooden. The filing offered no specifics behind the allegation.
Gooden retreated into a bedroom and barricaded himself there. Officers started negotiating for his surrender, but "he did not cooperate," the affidavit read.
Before dawn, Gooden shot at the officers with "what is believed to be multiple different firearms" and wounded the officers and the paramedic, the document continued.
Police used a drone and saw that Gooden was dead in the bedroom from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
On Tuesday, a BCA agent interviewed Noemi del Carmen Torres, who had a long-term relationship with Gooden and shared three children with him. She said that "either during or after the shooting" she was texting with Gooden's current girlfriend, who was in the home at the time of the gunfire with children belonging to her among the seven.
Torres said the two of them were texting about the shooting.
Along with those texts, the BCA wants to see texts that Torres was exchanging with Gooden on Feb. 12 and 13.
A sister of the other woman gave an update Monday 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."
Return to startribune.com for updates on this developing story.
