By Mara H. Gottfried
Pioneer Press
BURNSVILLE, Minn. — Burnsville police officers and firefighters filled a federal courtroom Tuesday as a woman pleaded guilty to illegally purchasing the firearms used to fatally shoot three of their co-workers last February. The victims’ families were also there.
Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, 36, admitted to two of the 11 charges against her. Prosecutors said she bought the firearms used by her boyfriend in the killings of officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand and firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, and to injure Burnsville police Sgt. Adam Medlicott.
The sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of 2½ years to three years and one month, followed by one to three years of supervised release, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Calhoun-Lopez said in court. It will be up to U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell to decide her sentence after a pre-sentence investigation is completed, and he’s not bound by the sentencing guidelines.
Blackwell said what Dyrdahl did went beyond purchasing firearms and, while she may have not intended the “tragic consequences,” her actions played a role.
Dyrdahl’s attorney, Manny Atwal, said she’d normally wait to make a comment in court until sentencing, but Dyrdahl told her it was important that she convey: “She knows that she cannot say ‘sorry’ or express her remorse enough” to the people in the courtroom, and family and friends of the victims who couldn’t be there. Dyrdahl is hoping that her acceptance of responsibility for her actions brings “even a small amount of relief,” Atwal said.
After Tuesday’s hearing at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul, Burnsville Fire Chief BJ Jungmann said it was difficult to hear Dyrdahl’s admission because it brought them back “to that tragic day,” but he said he appreciated that she took responsibility for her portion of it.
“The hard part is we can’t get back what we really want, we can’t get back our three colleagues that are important to us and the families,” he said.
Five guns in five months
Dyrdahl was the longtime live-in girlfriend of Shannon Gooden, 38. Authorities say he used two AR-15-style firearms on Feb. 18 to fatally ambush the officers and firefighter.
Two Burnsville officers were dispatched at about 1:50 a.m. to an in-progress domestic disturbance at the house on 33rd Avenue off Burnsville Parkway. Dyrdahl rented the home and Gooden lived there, along with their children.
A memo from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office said Gooden was suspected of sexually abusing a child, that Dyrdahl told police he had weapons, that Gooden assured officers he was unarmed, and that police called in many resources and were negotiating with him before Gooden ambushed them. There were seven children in the house with Gooden at the time of the shootings.
Gooden shot more than 100 rifle rounds at law enforcement and first responders, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has said.
Because Gooden pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2008, he had a lifetime ban on possessing firearms, according to a previous filing from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office. 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.
An investigation found that Dyrdahl went to two gun stores at Gooden’s direction and purchased or picked up five firearms in a five-month span, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Minnesota.
Gooden died by suicide after shooting the first responders.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Dyrdahl in March with one count of conspiracy, five counts of straw purchasing and five counts of making false statements during the purchase of a firearm. She initially pleaded not guilty, before indicating in a November court filing that she intended to change her plea.
She’ll do a PSA
Judge Blackwell asked Dyrdahl a series of procedural questions Tuesday before accepting her guilty plea. She told him she’d completed high school and taken some college courses online. She said she’d been sober for two years and currently takes a prescription medication for anxiety.
Dyrdahl pleaded guilty to straw purchasing a Franklin Armory FAI-15 firearm lower receiver at the Modern Sportsman on Jan. 5, 2024, and a Palmetto State Armory PA-15 lower receiver on Jan. 25 at the Burnsville Pistol & Rifle Range.
Calhoun-Lopez asked Dyrdahl if it was true that Gooden used those two firearms to ambush police officers and a firefighter/paramedic who responded to a call for help at his home.
With her voice quavering, Dyrdahl said, “Yes.”
To Calhoun-Lopez’s questions, she said she’d bought five firearms between September 2023 and January 2024 at Gooden’s direction, with the intent of transferring them to him to use and possess, while knowing he was legally prohibited from possessing firearms. As part of the plea deal, the remaining nine charges will be dismissed at sentencing, Calhoun-Lopez said.
Dyrdahl suggested that she do a public service announcement about the dangers and consequences of straw purchasing, which will be part of her supervised release, according to her attorney, Atwal, and Calhoun-Lopez. Dyrdahl’s idea for the PSA wasn’t for her plea deal, but “so this doesn’t happen again,” Atwal said.
The maximum federal sentence for straw purchasing is 15 years in prison for each charge, but because Dyrdahl doesn’t have a previous history of felony criminal activity, the sentencing guidelines call for a shorter sentence.
Burnsville Police Chief Tanya Schwartz said they were grateful to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for prosecuting Dyrdahl.
“They’re working within those (sentencing) guidelines, and those might not always feel like the right guidelines for us, especially losing … our partners,” she said.
‘Shook the bedrock’
Wounded Sgt. Medlicott was in the courtroom, as were the widows of Elmstrand and Finseth, the mother of Ruge, and other family members. There was “a lot of support here” for the families and “a lot of strength by the families to be here and to see every step of this through,” Schwartz said.
Jungmann said they’re fortunate to have such a supportive community.
“But I think the impact goes beyond what I can fathom,” he said. “I think it shook the bedrock in the community.”
“And really across the state of Minnesota,” added Schwartz, who stood next to Jungmann. “… Nothing like this has ever happened in our state.”
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