Accused Buffalo Clinic Shooter Found Competent to Stand Trial

(KNSI) – The man accused of shooting up a health clinic in Buffalo in February will go to trial.

A Wright County judge Wednesday ruled 67-year-old Gregory Ulrich is competent to stand trial for second-degree murder, four counts of attempted first-degree murder, and one count each of felony use of an explosive device and felon in possession of a firearm.

Ulrich is accused of walking into the Allina Crossroads Clinic in Buffalo on February 9th and opening fire, killing 37-year-old nurse Lindsay Overbay and wounding four others.
Overbay, who had been married for ten years, lived in Maple Lake with her husband and two children. She reportedly went to school at St. Cloud State University, where she earned her degree in journalism.

During the attack, Ulrich is also accused of detonating two improvised explosive devices – one at the clinic’s entrance and the other near a desk in the clinic’s interior before calling 911 on himself. Wright County Sheriff Sean Derringer said suspicious devices were also found at a local Super 8 motel where Ulrich had been staying, and there were at least two shattered windows there as well.

Ulrich has a long history of conflict with medical clinics in the area and had been unhappy with the care he had received, Buffalo Police Chief Pat Budke said. According to a police report, Ulrich threatened to carry out a mass shooting at the clinic in October 2018, with a doctor telling investigators that Ulrich had talked about “shooting, blowing things up, and practicing different scenarios of how to get revenge.”

Allina’s medical staff believed Ulrich might act on the threats and filed paperwork barring him from the company’s property, which police delivered to his home the next month. A criminal charge of violating a harassment restraining order was filed a couple of weeks later. The nature of that violation isn’t clear in court papers, but orders filed in that case in 2018 and 2019 prohibited Ulrich from having contact with a man whose name matches that of the doctor named in the police report. The charge of violating the restraining order was dismissed last April when the prosecutor said Ulrich was found “mentally incompetent to proceed.”

Ulrich’s next court appearance is set for September 21st.

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