Here’s how you can watch Wednesday’s funeral service for Burnsville officers, firefighter-paramedic

In response to intense public interest, the memorial service Wednesday for the two Burnsville police officers and the paramedic who were fatally shot during a Feb. 18 standoff will be livestreamed, officials announced Monday.

Wednesday’s service is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at Eden Prairie’s Grace Church, 9301 Eden Prairie Road. The service for officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge and firefighter-paramedic Adam Finseth in the church’s 4,300-seat auditorium has organizers “anticipating an unprecedented attendance,” Department of Public Safety (DPS) officials said.

Links for how to watch the service will be provided at burnsvillemn.gov/2376/Community-Updates and at the Grace Church livestream at grace.live. The church will open at 9:30 a.m.

Overflow parking and bus transportation to Grace Church will be provided from two locations in Eden Prairie: Miller Park, at 8208 Eden Prairie Road, and Staring Lake Park, at 14800 Pioneer Trail. Grace Church may fill up before everyone arrives from the overflow lots, the city warned in a Monday night news release. The bus service will run from 9 a.m. until the church is at capacity.

The public is also invited to watch a stream of the service at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, 13801 Fairview Drive. Community members are being encouraged to show their support by lining the route for the procession that will follow the service. That route will soon be announced on the city’s website.

“Watching the livestream and joining us on the procession routes are the best way to show your support and honor the fallen,” DPS spokesperson Howie Padilla said at a Monday news briefing. “Understand this, seating and parking at Grace Church is limited. Unfortunately, we know the space there simply cannot accommodate everyone who wants to attend. There will be traffic congestion; there will be delays in the area. We know this for sure. We have planned for this amount of love and support, and we continue to plan for the challenges that it brings.

“I can’t overstate this: There are so many elements that make this an unprecedented event. So much of this memorial service will be like nothing Minnesota has ever seen.”

On Monday, the city sent out a link for a map of where the procession will go.

The DPS also disclosed, as is custom in honor of public safety officers who have died in the line of duty, that a last call ceremony and procession of law enforcement will follow the memorial service. A last call usually involves a dispatcher announcing a fallen officer’s badge number and name, followed by a moment of silence.

Also at Monday’s briefing, Burnsville Police Chief Tanya Schwartz and Fire Chief B.J. Jungmann spoke publicly for the first time in a week, thanking the public for the support following the darkest day in the departments’ history, and acknowledging it “is still nearly impossible for us to comprehend.”

“We continue to stand before you today with heavy hearts, with pain that is immense, and it is just really indescribable,” Schwartz said. “What is also indescribable is the love and the solidarity that has surrounded us.

“You see the memorials here behind us,” she said, gesturing to the massive array of flowers, signs, stuffed animals and flags piled atop the police and fire squads. “In our own ways and our own times, we come here to feel connected to Matt and Adam and Paul. We pray here and we cry, and we embrace and we are trying to heal our broken hearts.”

Jungmann encouraged community members to keep the families of the fallen in mind, as well as their city of Burnsville colleagues.

“Your strength in the face of this tragedy has been humbling,” he said. “Chief Schwartz and I have never been so proud to be able to work alongside all of you.”

He also thanked neighboring agencies for assisting Burnsville with police, fire and EMS service, “allowing our staff to focus on the families of the fallen and one another.”

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is leading the investigation into the shooting, which occurred during an hourslong standoff at a home in the 12600 block of S. 33rd Avenue. The man who killed the officers and the paramedic, 38-year-old Shannon Gooden, killed himself inside his home while seven children were in the residence.

BCA investigators seized several firearms and a large amount of ammunition at the scene. They also recovered cartridge casings that showed Gooden had fired “more than 100 rifle rounds at law enforcement and first responders,” the agency said.

The deadly standoff began after police were called about “an alleged sexual assault allegation,” according to a search warrant affidavit filed last Tuesday by the BCA, which has not offered a possible motive for the shooting.

Star Tribune staff writer Abby Simons contributed to this report.