On September 5, 2019 three seperate schools, in the city of Shawnee Oklahoma, found themselves in a “lock-down” situation. For local police, what began as a traffic stop, would ultimately prove itself to be fatal. While we often report on police brutality, wrongful shootings, sadly, this is not one of those articles. Brandon Goodin, who was father to a toddler, was pulled over due to a hit and run incident. The police attempted to serve a warrant for his arrest. However, Goodin had other plans. Goodin ultimately sped off before barricating himself into a nearby home. The police remained outside as the local SWAT unit arrived.

During, what would become a two hour standoff, Goodin was reported to have fired multiple shots at the police. The result of the shooting lead to three seperate schools going into lock-down. An elementary, a highschool, and a middle school. Only after Goodin died of a self inflicted gunshot, were the schools released from the security status. However, this brings fourth many questions. Who was Brandon Goodin and why did he choose to end his own life that day? While the second question may never be known, the first one can be explained with his extensive background.

As we looked through his background, it quickly became apparant that he’s had more than his share of dealings with the courts. Everything from Neglect, drug possession, armed robbery, it was obvious that he had made himself a rather unsuccessful criminal career. We had also found that crimes of a violent nature weren’t out of his category either. In 2000, He was convicted of first degree arson. What this essentially means is he preplanned and followed through with burning a structor. But his criminal history doesn’t end there.

Upon further investigation, we found that 2009 was a very eventful year for Goodin. In this year, not only was he convicted of second degree burlgery he was also convicted to knowingly possessing stolen items, most likely a charge that derived from the burglery. Most of the other events in his background were minor. Stealing street signs, avoiding police, things of that nature.

We found that, according to his Facebook, he was an “Apprentice electrician” at the company, “Shawver and Son.” He had apparantly been employed here since November of 2017. However, as of the time of this writing, we have been unable to establish any contact with this company. While his final post to Facebook has the typical “RIP” comments, understandingly, not everybody shares the sentiment; he did, afterall, cause three seperate schools to go into lockdown. In one such comment, the commenter leaves the simply statement, “Oops bad decision.” While it’s easy to understand why such a comment would be made, it’s the responses that we found to be interesting. One such response reads, “He was a good man. I lived with him. He had a big heart. RIP my friend.” While I do understand that there would be a natural bias, I almost felt compelled to ask, “Does a good man create a situation for children that is potentially traumatizing?” In the end, there may not be a deffinant answer to this question.

Currently, this is a story that is hot with the local media platforms. Although we were asked to cover it, we have opted out of contacting any family, we may do so at a later time. The reason for this decision is to give the family a chance to grieve. As with any story of this nature, there will always be people on both sides of the fence: those who believe him to be a good person, and those that will believe him to be a failed criminal, dying the way he had chosen to live.