Girlfriend of Burnsville man who fatally shot 3 first-responders indicted for straw purchasing firearms

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
Updated ·10 min read
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Girlfriend of Burnsville man who fatally shot 3 first-responders indicted for straw purchasing firearms

Since three Burnsville first-responders were killed in the line of duty nearly a month ago, law enforcement and the public have been asking how a felon with a lifetime ban on possessing firearms obtained the murder weapons. On Thursday, U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Andrew Luger said prosecutors can answer that question.

Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, the gunman’s longtime, live-in girlfriend, has been indicted for straw purchasing the firearms used in the killings, Luger announced.

The gunman, Shannon Gooden, 38, used two AR-15 style firearms to fatally ambush Burnsville police officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, and to injure Burnsville police Sgt. Adam Medlicott. Those weapons were purchased by Dyrdahl, 35, on Jan. 5 and Jan. 25, according to Luger.

Her attorney, speaking during a Thursday afternoon court appearance for Dyrdahl, said she is pleading not guilty to the 11 charges.

At a Thursday morning press conference, Luger was flanked by other top state and federal law enforcement officials and Dakota County public safety leaders.

“As this indictment makes clear, Dyrdahl’s illegal buying spree for Gooden demonstrates a reprehensible disregard for public safety and the law,” Luger said. “And the consequences of this disregard for public safety are beyond comprehension. Dyrdahl intentionally and repeatedly obtained powerful and dangerous firearms and put them in the hands of a violent, convicted felon. As a result of Dyrdahl’s criminal actions, the families and friends of these men and their agencies and our entire community will mourn their loss forever.”

Dyrdahl surrendered to the U.S. Marshals Service Thursday, Luger said, and was brought by them into a courtroom at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul Thursday afternoon. Dyrdahl answered brief questions from a judge, who determined she qualified for a federal public defender.

Luger said his office wouldn’t seek to keep Dyrdahl detained and she was released with conditions, including not leaving the state without permission. As she walked out of the courthouse, she used her arm to cover her face because TV cameras, photographers and journalists were waiting. Dyrdahl didn’t speak and her attorney declined comment outside the courtroom.

Prosecutors: She knew he was banned from having guns

Gooden had a lifetime ban on possessing firearms after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to assault with a dangerous weapon. Dyrdahl, his girlfriend since 2016, knew he wasn’t allowed to possess firearms — she was among the people who wrote a letter in support of his petition to have his firearm rights restored, which a judge denied in 2020.

Dyrdahl went to two gun stores at Gooden’s direction and purchased or picked up five firearms in a five-month span, Luger said.

“The indictment makes it clear that Dyrdahl and Gooden knew exactly what they were doing” and “that he could not purchase firearms because he was a convicted felon,” Luger said. “So instead, he would pick out specific weapons and she would buy them in violation of federal law, placing powerful weapons in the hands of a violent, convicted felon.”

An example of Dyrdahl’s “clear understanding that they were violating the law” was described in the indictment, Luger said. On Sept. 10, the couple had a text message exchange where they discussed background checks and other questions that firearm sellers asked Dyrdahl. She wrote, “We just gotta make sure we’re smart about all this ya know?” the indictment said.

Luger added: “In a second, chilling text message exchange, Dyrdahl asked Gooden how he liked a new Glock 47 semiautomatic pistol she had just purchased for him. He responded by sending her a video, in which he loaded the Glock 47 with an extended magazine. She responded with a smiling heart emoji.”

Between Sept. 21 and Jan. 25, Dyrdahl conspired with Gooden “to place firearms in Gooden’s hands, despite the fact Gooden could not legally own or possess firearms,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Dyrdahl is charged with one count of conspiracy, five counts of straw purchasing and five counts of making false statements during the purchase of a firearm.

Straw purchasing is when someone who is legally allowed to buy a gun does so and provides it to a person who is prohibited from having it.

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Drydrahl was allowed to buy firearms. Her past convictions weren’t for felonies, Minnesota court records show. She pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in 2010, driving while impaired by alcohol in 2012 and 2017, and obstructing legal process by interfering with a peace officer in 2013.

The federal indictment also accuses Dyrdahl of lying on the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives form required when purchasing a weapon; the form requires every purchaser to state they are buying the weapon for themselves.

Dyrdahl purchased four of the firearms from the Modern Sportsman in Burnsville and one from the Burnsville Pistol & Rifle Range, according to the indictment. Luger said the businesses “cooperated with the investigation.”

The maximum penalty if Dyrdahl is convicted is 15 years in prison, Luger said.

Investigation ‘came together quickly’

Gooden shot more than 100 rifle rounds at law enforcement and first-responders, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has said.

One of the firearms that Dyrdahl is accused of buying for Gooden had a binary trigger, enabling the gun to fire when the trigger is both pulled and released, “effectively doubling the rate of fire,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office. Dyrdahl knew Gooden was loading the AR-15-style firearms with .300 Blackout ammunition, a “heavier load ammunition that has an increased potential for lethality,” the federal prosecutors’ office said.

Immediately after the homicides, BCA agents with the support of the ATF “set out to find” out how Gooden obtained the firearms and “this case came together quickly,” according to Luger.

The incident began when Burnsville police were dispatched to the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South about 1:50 a.m. Feb. 18 after receiving a report of a domestic incident, according to the BCA. It was “regarding an alleged sexual assault,” a BCA agent wrote in an application for a search warrant.

Dyrdahl made the 911 call, she previously told Noemi Torres, the mother of Gooden’s older children, who were in the home with Gooden.

The 911 call abruptly ended. Dyrdahl told Torres that Gooden took the phone and she tried to get him to calm down before she ran out from the garage and talked to police outside, Torres said.

Police who responded to the home spoke with Gooden, who wouldn’t leave the residence but said he was unarmed. Asked Thursday whether Dyrdahl told law enforcement what Gooden had in the house, Luger said he couldn’t talk about it because of the ongoing BCA investigation.

Gooden told law enforcement he had children inside the home. Of the seven kids who were in the home, two are children that Gooden and Dyrdahl had together, three are Gooden and Torres’ from their previous relationship, and two are Dydrahl’s children from a past relationship.

Officers went inside and negotiated with Gooden for about three and a half hours, trying to get him to surrender peacefully, but he opened fire at 5:26 a.m. on the officers inside the home “without warning,” according to the BCA.

Gooden continued to fire shots out of the home at officers and an armored vehicle, which had personnel inside. Gooden then fatally shot himself, according to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office.

Law enforcement found “a stockpile of fully loaded magazines” and “boxes with hundreds of additional rounds of ammunition and additional firearms” in the bedroom the couple shared, according to the indictment.

Burnsville Fire Chief B.J. Jungmann said the losses of Finseth, Elmstrad and Ruge, and wounding of Medlicott were “an avoidable tragedy.”

“I believe our partners would be alive today if this woman would not have bought these guns and given them to the murderer who shot our partners on Feb. 18,” Jungmann said.

And Burnsville Police Chief Tanya Schwartz said they “will never give up seeking accountability and justice for Matt, Paul, Adam and their families.”

The BCA’s investigation into the shootings and Gooden’s “actions earlier that day” are ongoing, said BCA Superintendent Drew Evans.

“There will be a complete accounting of … the incident in its entirety, but that will come down that road,” he said.

Past domestic abuse alleged

Torres has said the U.S. Attorney’s Office subpoenaed her to testify before a grand jury on Tuesday. The indictment against Dyrdahl was filed Wednesday and unsealed Thursday.

During Torres’ testimony to the grand jury, she said a federal prosecutor inquired about their relationship, which ended in 2016, and whether Gooden asked her to purchase guns for him when they were together.

“I told them ‘no’,” she said Tuesday of her testimony to the grand jury. “The reason why was because I feared for my life.”

Torres has said Gooden was abusive to her and would threaten to kill her if she called the police.

Dyrdahl also alleged abuse at Gooden’s hands when she applied for an order for protection against him in 2017. She wrote he previously head butted her face, gave her a concussion and black eye, and threw her around and down the stairs. He was “very physically & mentally abusive, controlling,” she also wrote.

The matter was dismissed when neither she nor Gooden appeared at a hearing, a court record shows.

Why he couldn’t have guns

In 2007, Gooden was in a Burnsville shopping center when security officers escorted him out due to an argument about harassing phone calls that a woman suspected he made to her. The woman’s mother and brother arrived, and Gooden and the woman’s brother squared off to fight.

Gooden threw landscaping rocks at the woman’s brother and hit him with them, according to the criminal complaint. Gooden pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2008.

The conviction for a crime of violence came with a lifetime ban on possessing firearms, the Dakota County attorney’s office wrote. The county attorney’s office opposed Gooden’s petition to the court in 2020 to restore his firearms rights and a judge did not restore them.

“Tragically, the efforts of my office were negated due to the actions of Ashley Dyrdahl,” Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said Thursday.

She quoted from Drydahl’s letter in support of Gooden’s petition, in which Drydahl wrote: “Family is everything to him and that is why these rights are so meaningful to him. He hopes to one day own his own home and protecting that home involves having these 2nd amendment rights.”

Keena then said, speaking at the press conference: “In retrospect, it was the seven children in his home that needed protection from him. Ms. Dyrdahl is the reason why Mr. Gooden had an arsenal of firearms in his possession that ultimately resulted in the murder of three of Dakota County’s finest and the injury of another as they selflessly acted to protect those children.”

After the February shootings, a sister of Dyrdahl started a GoFundMe, writing that Dyrdahl and her children were staying with family and the goal was to get them back into a home of their own “so they can grieve in private, replace transportation, start their healing journey via therapy, and get the kids back to normal routines and school as soon as possible.”

The page also said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the first responders, and all those whom were affected by this incident. Our hearts go out to all the law enforcement officials that were involved. Ashley and her children are safe today because of their heroic actions, and we cannot thank them enough for their courage and bravery.”

The GoFundMe remained active as of Thursday night with $20,000 in donations.

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