Politics & Government
Apple Valley Man Sentenced for 2011 Burnsville Fatal Shooting
Derrick Wallace Dahl received a stayed prison sentence of 48 months and was placed on probation for 10 years. As conditions of probation Dahl was ordered to serve 90 days in jail and pay restitution.
A 23-year-old Apple Valley man has been sentenced for the fatal shooting of a Welch, MN man in Burnsville in 2011.
Derrick Wallace Dahl received a stayed jail sentence of 48 months and was placed on probation for 10 years.
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He will serve 90 days in jail and pay restitution, as part of the conditions of his probation.
In May, Dahl pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Benjamin Allen Hanson, 22, on July 23, 2011.
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Here is the text of a press release from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office announcing the sentencing:
Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom announced that Derrick Wallace Dahl, age 23 of Apple Valley was sentenced today by Judge Erica MacDonald in connection with the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Benjamin Allen Hanson of Welch, Minnesota that took place on July 23, 2011 around 9 p.m. Dahl received a stayed prison sentence of 48 months and was placed on probation for 10 years. As conditions of probation Dahl was ordered to serve 90 days in jail and pay restitution. At the time of his guilty plea on May 23 to Manslaughter in the Second Degree, Dahl indicated the he and friends, including the victim, were handling several handguns at a home in Burnsville. Thinking the weapon was unloaded, Dahl cocked a 45-caliber semi-automatic handgun, pointed it at the victim’s head and pulled the trigger. The gun discharged and Hanson was shot in the head. He died the next day.
Backstrom commented: “This was a preventable death that could easily have been avoided if two of the most basic gun safety maxims had been followed: You should always assume a gun is loaded and you should never point a gun at another person.”
Backstrom expressed his sympathy to the family of Benjamin Hanson.
According to the criminal complaint, Burnsville police were called to a home on East Crystal Lake Road on July 23, 2011, on a report of an accidental shooting. The caller told police that the victim had been shot in the head and was unconscious, but breathing.
When officers arrived, they found Dahl outside the home. He initially told police that he was inside while his friend was cleaning a gun, the complaint says; he said he didn’t witness the shot, but heard it and saw his friend fall to the ground.
Police yelled for the man inside the home to come outside. He told police that he, Dahl and Hanson were downstairs cleaning guns, and that he had his back to Dahl and Hanson. He said he heard a loud bang and turned to see Dahl with his hands near his face and Hanson on the floor, according to the complaint.
The witness called 911.
Police and paramedics went inside the house and found Hanson with a gunshot wound to his head, lying on the floor of a basement kitchenette, the complaint says. He was taken by ambulance to Hennepin County Medical Center.
Police found a semi-automatic handgun on the floor of a nearby closet, and also found another semi-automatic handgun on the counter and a black revolver near the sink, according to the complaint.
During a subsequent search of the home, officers found a variety of guns and a single spent shell casing marked “Speer 45 auto,” the same brand and caliber as the ammunition found in the gun that had been lying on the floor of the closet.
Dahl was questioned again at the Burnsville police station and said he was not in the kitchenette when the gun went off. Later, he said that he had been in the room when the gun was fired, and eventually he told police that he had pointed a handgun—which he thought was unloaded—at Hanson and fired it, according to the complaint.
Dahl told police that it was the first time he had ever handled a gun and that he knew nothing about them, the complaint says. He said that earlier, all three men had been pointing the empty guns at one another, “just playing around,” according to the complaint.
Hanson’s mother called Burnsville police on Sunday and told them her son had died at the hospital.
Initially, Dahl also was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm in a municipality, a felony, and misdemeanor charges of intentionally pointing a gun at another person and recklessly handling a gun.
