Transcript: 911 caller asking police ‘Help me,’ then screams, preceded deadly standoff in Minnesota
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A deadly standoff in Minnesota began with a 911 call in which the caller said, “Help me.” There was a shout and the call was cut off. Dispatch attempted to call back three times, but no one answered, according to a transcript of the 911 call.
The incident led to the deaths of two police officers and a firefighter-paramedic who responded to the call early Sunday in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. The standoff ended when the suspect committed suicide and seven children were escorted from his home.
The 911 transcript obtained by local media and search warrant documents released Wednesday revealed new details about what happened.
The transcript shows that at 1:50 a.m. on Sunday, the caller asked if the police could come “right now.” She said ‘my husband is’, but the next words were redacted. The caller then said: “Help me,” before someone cursed and shouted. The conversation then ended abruptly. The dispatcher tried to call back three times, without success.
Officials with the Burnsville Police Department and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did not immediately respond Thursday to phone messages and emails seeking details. But the search warrant application, filed by a BCA agent, said the initial 911 call “in reference to an alleged allegation of sexual assault,” without elaborating.
The fallen first responders were Burnsville police officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and Adam Finseth, 40, a firefighter and paramedic assigned to the city’s SWAT team. A third officer, Sgt. Adam Medlicott was injured and is recovering at home.
The documents fill holes in the story BCA Superintendent Drew Evans gave at a press conference on Sunday. Because the case is still under investigation, the agency has not released more than broad strokes of what happened, though it has said it plans to issue a press release with an update by the end of this week.
According to the warrant, officers arrived at the home and made contact with the caller and the suspect, Shannon Gooden, 38.
“At some point during the incident, GOODEN retreated to a bedroom and barricaded himself. Officers negotiated for GOODEN to surrender, but he was uncooperative,” the document said. “Sometime later, GOODEN opened fire on officers with what is believed to be multiple different firearms, fatally wounding two Burnsville police officers and a firefighter (Medic). Officers returned fire at GOODEN and he retreated to a bedroom.
Police using a drone later found Gooden dead in the bedroom from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, the officer wrote. The medical examiner later confirmed that this was the cause of death.
The BCA filed a warrant seeking permission to search the phone of Gooden’s ex-girlfriend, Noemi Torres, the mother of three of seven children who were in the home but were unharmed by the gunfire. The officer wanted access to text messages between Torres and Gooden’s current girlfriend that they exchanged during and after the incident.
The officer, who took Torres’ phone as evidence, also wanted to see messages between Gooden and Torres from last week, which the officer said was the last time Torres communicated, as well as any other communications, photos or other information on the phone . that could be useful for the research.
Court records show Gooden was legally barred from owning guns because of his criminal record and was embroiled in a yearslong dispute over the custody and financial support of his three eldest children. The children in the house were between 2 and 15 years old.
Authorities have not said whether they have determined how he obtained the weapons. Evans declined Sunday to say what type of weapons Gooden had, other than to say investigators found “several weapons and large quantities of ammunition.”
Thor Eells, executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association, said it is too early to evaluate the police response given the limited information that has been made public.
The timeline is not clear, he said. He notes, among other things, that it is not clear when the SWAT team arrived, whether the killed responders were sent as part of the SWAT team or in their capacity as patrol officers, and what information the officers had at the time.
“There are a lot of holes. “It takes a lot of information to form an informed opinion about the appropriateness of certain actions,” said Eells, a retired police captain from Colorado Springs, Colorado, who previously led that department’s SWAT team.
A public memorial service for Elmstrand, Ruge and Finseth will be held at 11 a.m. Feb. 28 at Grace Church in suburban Eden Prairie.