On Tuesday, police officers and firemen from Burnsville crowded into a federal courtroom to watch a woman plead guilty to buying the guns she used to kill three coworkers last February without a permit. The families of the dead were also there.
Eight of the eleven charges against Ashley Anne Dyrdahl, 36, were dropped. Police say she bought the guns that her boyfriend used to kill officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand, firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth, and to hurt Burnsville police sergeant Adam Medlicott.
According to the guidelines, the person should go to jail for two and a half to three years and one month and then be under close supervision for one to three years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Calhoun-Lopez said this in court. A pre-sentence investigation will be done, and then U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell will decide on her sentence. He is not bound by the sentencing standards.
Blackwell said Dyrdahl did more than just buy guns, and even though she may not have meant for “tragic consequences” to happen, her acts did play a part.
Manny Atwal, Dyrdahl’s lawyer, said she normally wouldn’t say anything in court until the sentence was handed down. But Dyrdahl told Atwal, “She knows that she cannot say ‘ sorry’ or express her remorse enough” to the people in the courtroom and to the victims’ family and friends who couldn’t be there. Atwal said that Dyrdahl hopes that taking responsibility for what she did will give her “even a small amount of relief.”
Burnsville Fire Chief BJ Jungmann said it was hard to hear Dyrdahl’s statement because it took them back to “that tragic day,” but he was glad she took responsibility for her part in what happened. The hearing took place on Tuesday at the federal courthouse in downtown St. Paul.
“It’s hard because we can’t get back what we want—our three coworkers who are important to us and our families,” he said.
Five months, five guns
The 38-year-old Shannon Gooden lived with Dyrdahl for a long time. Police say he killed the police officers and firemen on February 18 by setting up a deadly ambush with two guns that looked like AR-15s.
Around 1:50 a.m., two Burnsville police officers were sent to a house on 33rd Avenue, which is off Burnsville Parkway, where a domestic incident was happening. They rented the house from Dyrdahl and lived there with their kids.
According to a memo from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office, Gooden was accused of sexually abusing a child. Dyrdahl told police that Gooden had weapons, but Gooden told them he wasn’t. Police called in a lot of help and were talking with Gooden before he attacked them. When the shots were fired, Gooden had seven kids living with him.
A report from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says Gooden fired more than 100 gunshots at police and first responders.
An earlier filing from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office said that Gooden could never own a gun again because he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in 2008. The county attorney’s office fought Gooden’s request to the court in 2020 to get his gun rights back, and the judge did not grant them.
Based on an investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Minnesota says Dyrdahl bought or picked up five guns at two gun shops while being told to do so by Gooden over five months.
After shooting the first rescuers, Gooden killed himself.
In March, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged Dyrdahl with one count of plot, five counts of straw purchasing, and five counts of lying about facts while buying a gun. She first said she wasn’t guilty, but in a court document from November, she said she was going to change her plea.
She’s going to do a PSA
Before taking Dyrdahl’s guilty plea on Tuesday, Judge Blackwell asked her several questions about how the case would be handled. She told him she was done with high school and had taken some online college classes. She said she had been sober for two years and is now taking a prescription drug for nervousness.
Dyrdahl admitted that he bought a Franklin Armory FAI-15 lower receiver at the Modern Sportsman on January 5, 2024, and a Palmetto State Armory PA-15 lower receiver at the Burnsville Pistol & Rifle Range on January 25, 2024.
Calhoun-Lopez asked Dyrdahl if it was true that Gooden used those two guns to hide and shoot police officers and a firefighter/paramedic who came to his house after getting a call for help.
Dyrdahl said, “Yes,” but her voice was shaking.
When Calhoun-Lopez asked her about it, she said that she had bought five guns between September 2023 and January 2024 at Gooden’s direction so that he could use and hold them, even though she knew that he was not allowed to by law. Calhoun-Lopez said that the remaining nine charges will be dropped at the sentence because of the plea deal.
According to her lawyer, Atwal, and Calhoun-Lopez, Dyrdahl suggested that she make a PSA about the risks and effects of straw purchases. This will be part of her supervised release. Atwal said Dyrdahl made the PSA “so this doesn’t happen again,” not as part of her plea deal.
For each charge of straw purchasing, the maximum federal sentence is 15 years in prison. However, Dyrdahl doesn’t have a past of felony crimes, so the guidelines call for a shorter punishment.
Tanya Schwartz, the chief of police in Burnsville, said they were thankful that Dyrdahl was being charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
“They have to follow those guidelines for sentencing, and sometimes those might not feel like the right guidelines for us, especially after losing our partners,” she said.
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