[STARTRIBUNE] The undercover officers who fatally shot Winston Boogie Smith Jr. | ...who doesn’t look in his early thirties in that photo... |
"Though I am unable to determine who fired first, it is irrelevant in this case," Crow Wing County Attorney Donald Ryan wrote in a letter to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman dated Oct. 6, but released Monday. "Once an individual initiates a deadly force confrontation, a law enforcement officer does not have to wait to be shot/shot at reaction."
Smith was shot June 3 by two members of the U.S. Marshals Service's Northstar Violent Offender Task Force, which was attempting to arrest him on a warrant for being a felon in possession of a gun. Ryan didn't identify the task force members who shot Smith or their home agencies.
Their actions in firing at Smith were "reasonable and justified," Ryan wrote. "Their conduct was clearly in response to an apparent threat of death or great bodily harm."
Smith was shot in an SUV on the top level of the ramp in the 1400 block of W. Lake Street across from Stella's Fish Cafe, where he had just dined with a date and posted to social media about the experience.
There is no body camera or squad car dashcam footage of the incident because none was in use. The lack of transparency in this case prompted multiple Twin Cities metro sheriff's departments to pause their joint efforts with the task force.
| Related: CBS has a more recent photo of the former miscreant here. |