A man barricaded in his home outside of Minneapolis with seven children and other family members opened fire early on Sunday during attempted negotiations with law enforcement officials, killing two police officers and a paramedic, the authorities said.
The shooting took place just before 2 a.m. in the city of Burnsville, about 16 miles south of Minneapolis.
The police received a call from a resident inside a home about an armed man barricaded with family members, including the children, ages 2 to 15, Superintendent Drew Evans of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
He spoke at an emotional news conference on Sunday evening during which community leaders held back tears as they described the day as being among the most difficult Burnsville, a city of about 64,000 people, had ever experienced.
Officers attempted to negotiate with the man for “quite a bit of time,” but he opened fire, Superintendent Evans said.
Police Officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, both 27, and a firefighter-paramedic assigned to the SWAT team, Adam Finseth, 40, were killed, the authorities said. Another police officer, Sgt. Adam Medlicott, was injured and taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.
The gunman had “several guns and large amounts of ammunition and shot at the police officers from multiple positions within the home,” Superintendent Evans said.
Several officers returned fire, he added, but the exact details of the gunfire exchange remain under investigation.
The gunman, who was not publicly identified, was reported dead around 8 a.m. The children and other family members were able to escape, Superintendent Evans said. He noted that “there had not been many calls for service at all,” to the residence.
Chief B.J. Jungmann of the Burnsville Fire Department said that Sunday had been “the toughest day that the city of Burnsville and our public safety family has ever experienced.”
He added, “Our folks come to work every day and are willing to give up the ultimate sacrifice of their life but no one expects it to happen.”
Officer Elmstrand joined the Burnsville Police Department in August 2017 as a community service officer and was promoted to officer in July 2019. Officer Ruge joined the department in April 2020 and was part of its crisis negotiation team and was a physical evidence officer. Mr. Finseth had been a firefighter-paramedic since February 2019, the city said.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that its agents from St. Paul were responding to what it described as a “domestic-related shooting.”
Alicia McCullum, who moved into the neighborhood in March, lives two houses down from where the shooting happened.
“We woke up and heard gunshots,’’ she said. “We heard one gunshot. Our son came in our room right away, looked out the window and heard three more.”
“We prayed with our neighbors on the phone,” she added. “We are praying because we know that there are seven children in that house.”
Cara Schulz, a City Council member and the acting mayor in Burnsville, said, “We offer our heartfelt condolences to the families of the two police officers and one fire paramedic who were killed in the line of duty and our thoughts are with our police officer who was injured.”
On Facebook, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association said, “our law enforcement community is heartbroken.”
“We’re just devastated at the horrific loss,” it said.
Bernard Mokam contributed reporting.
