Crime & Safety

Apple Valley Man Pleads Guilty to Accidentally Shooting, Killing Friend

Derrick Wallace Dahl pleaded guilty this week after saying in December that there was not enough probable cause against him.

The Apple Valley man charged with manslaughter after shooting his friend in the head with a gun he thought was unloaded pleaded guilty in Dakota County Court this week.

Derrick Wallace Dahl, 22, pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter on Wednesday in the shooting death of Benjamin Allen Hanson, 22, of Welch, MN. 

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Dahl's sentencing is scheduled for July. Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom told the Pioneer Press that Dahl's sentence would be 90 days in jail, 10 years' probation and a stayed prison sentence of four years—less than guidelines stipulate.

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.

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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.


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