You can help honor the bravery, selflessness, and sacrifice of three fallen first responders in Burnsville.
Burnsville Deputy Chief Matt Smith and Sgt. Adam Medlicott joined Liz Collin on her podcast to talk about the fundraising efforts underway to bring families and colleagues to Washington, D.C., and Maryland in May as the department is still working through their grief nearly a year after the unthinkable loss.
On Feb. 18 of last year, officers Paul Elmstrand and Matthew Ruge, along with firefighter paramedic Adam Finseth, died in the line of duty during a tragic standoff in Burnsville.
Sgt. Adam Medlicott was also injured that morning. He stood with them the day of their final call and spoke at the public memorial service last year.
“ … I very much don’t want to get into minute details or talk so broadly about myself because there was a whole department of people that had to go through recovery. Everybody’s been hurt from this. I was very blessed and very lucky that the bullet that struck me in the arm was a through and through injury,” Medlicott said.
“So that healed on its own without any extra surgeries or physical therapy. The round that hit me in the back, the bulletproof vest did its job. It stopped that bullet. As far as the psychological recovery to trauma, there’s ways to treat that with therapy and other exercises and various tasks … I’ve taken the advice of others that have been willing to give it and I’ve gone through the therapy sessions and I’ve done what I feel that I needed to do to recover psychologically from the trauma of it. And then there’s the emotional recovery, which I would say that it’s just ongoing. It’s never going to stop,” Sgt. Medlicott explained.
Deputy Chief Smith said the support from the community has blown them all away.
“You never expect anything like this to happen. You know it’s possible, but you never expect it. When we got back here and the memorials were out front and the amount of flowers and visitors, just overwhelming in a good way. There was food and drinks and just the yard signs, red and blue lights all over the community. During the procession after the memorial, I mean, that was a cold day, and for the number of people who were out there to honor these guys, I was blown away by it, and it continues,” Chief Smith said.
The Burnsville Police Department said everyone who was on that call that day has returned to work and no one left the department as a result.
The officers also spoke of the “ripple effect” of such a tragedy. The father of Matthew Ruge, Sean Ruge, died of a heart attack just weeks after granting an interview to Alpha News in the documentary “Minnesota v. We The People” where he discussed the loss of his beloved son.
“It didn’t just directly affect the people that were on scene. It directly affected everybody within the department, everybody within our neighboring departments, and really everybody in law enforcement across the state that all know that this could have been them. This could have been a call that they had responded to. Then you kind of look at the way it indirectly affects that next level of people, the family members that support and love a police officer, and knowing that when they send them out the door and say goodbye, that they could not return home that night or that day,” Sgt. Medlicott said.
The Fraternal Order of Police is raising money to send families and colleagues to National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Weekend in Emmitsburg, Md., on May 3-4 and the National Law Enforcement Memorial Service held in Washington, D.C., on May 15. The fallen first responders will be memorialized at these services.
“So it really allows the family members, the co-workers to be together and be together with people who have gone through something similar and had loss that’s similar. Each of these cases is unique in its own way and each of these stories is its own, but also it’s healing and comforting to be around people who, sadly, have been through something similar,” Chief Smith said.
Pope County Deputy Josh Owen was added to that memorial last May. In addition to the Burnsville tragedies in 2024, Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell, Red Lake police officer Jesse Branch and National Park Service Ranger Kevin Grossheim all died in the line of duty in 2024 in Minnesota.
“I was never going to let the actions of one evil person dictate what I do with my life. I have wanted to be a police officer pretty much my whole life. I spent my entire adult life working to get to the point I am at. I am proud to be a police officer,” Sgt. Medlicott said of his decision to go back to work after the tragedy.
The city of Burnsville proclaimed Feb. 18 as Public Safety Memorial Day and will have a memorial outside of city hall for the public to pay their respects.
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Liz Collin
Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
