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Shannon Cortez Gooden: Burnsville Gunman the News Media Won’t Name UPDATE: Local Media Breaks Embargo

Posted on | February 19, 2024 | Comments Off on Shannon Cortez Gooden: Burnsville Gunman the News Media Won’t Name UPDATE: Local Media Breaks Embargo

Sunday evening, I was riding in the car with my brother Kirby, scrolling through the news on my phone, puzzled that police in Minnesota had not yet named the gunman who killed two cops and a paramedic in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. The gunman also died during the incident, so that identifying him could not possibly interfere with the investigation. Nor was there any reason for the news media to refrain from naming the gunman, because dead men don’t file libel lawsuits. When we got back to the house, it didn’t take too much work to find that the gunman had already been identified by Alpha News.

That was 9:34 p.m. Sunday, about 18 hours after the shooting in Burnsville. A bit more digging enabled me to confirm that Shannon Gooden lived in the same black of 33rd Avenue where the Burnsville shooting happened, and there are also online records of Gooden’s previous court cases related to a child custody dispute. According to one online account (which I can’t confirm), Gooden’s wife caught him having sex with his 14-year-old stepdaughter, which was the reason police had been dispatched to the residence. But whatever the facts of the case may be, police have acknowledged that the perpetrator of the shooting is dead, and yet won’t name him publicly — and the mainstream news media appears perfectly willing to go along with this.

The motive for such a cover-up is . . . mysterious.

UPDATE: Scott Johnson at Powerline:

The suspect is obviously known to law enforcement. Why hasn’t he been identified? Your guess is as good as mine. The Star Tribune has the bylines of five reporters (count ’em) on its current story, but nothing on the identity of the suspect.

This isn’t mere laziness. It’s journalistic negligence.

UPDATE: Finally! The Saint Paul Pioneer Press reports:

The man who fatally shot two Burnsville police officers and a firefighter was a 38-year-old who pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon from a 2007 case. He petitioned the court in 2020 to have his gun rights restored, which a judge denied.
Shannon Cortez Gooden was found dead in the home, where he was a renter, according to law enforcement sources and other records.
Law enforcement said Sunday that “several guns and large amounts of ammunition” were found in the home, which Burnsville police were dispatched to about 1:50 a.m. Sunday. Someone in the house in the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South called 911, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said during a Sunday news conference.
When officers arrived, the armed suspect was barricaded inside the home with family members, including seven children between the ages of 2 and 15, Evans said.
After talking with police negotiators for “quite a bit of time,” the suspect opened fire on officers who were inside the home, and multiple officers returned fire, according to Evans. During the shootout, the gunman fired from several locations inside the house, fatally striking Burnsville officers Paul Elmstrand, 27, and Matthew Ruge, also 27, and firefighter/paramedic, Adam Finseth, 40. Sgt. Adam Medlicott was also injured.
Police received a report about 8 a.m. Sunday that the suspect was dead inside the house. A person with knowledge of the matter said the gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The suspect will be officially identified by the medical examiner, but law enforcement sources confirmed to the Pioneer Press Monday that he was Gooden. A court filing in a civil matter showed Gooden was served at the 33rd Avenue address in December.
A relative of Gooden’s said the family didn’t want to comment Monday.

So now the news media embargo on the gunman’s identity has been broken, and the story will now disappear from the national headlines.



 

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Category: Crime, Media Bias, Minnesota

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