Angry protesters lit fires, looted stores and taunted cops in Minneapolis overnight after officers Thursday shot and killed a fugitive who fired at them as they closed in to arrest him, authorities said.
Members of a US Marshals task force were attempting to arrest the felon — identified by friends as 32-year-old rapper Winston Boogie Smith — around 2 p.m. on a state warrant for being a criminal in possession of a firearm, authorities said.
“During the incident, the subject, who was in a parked car, failed to comply and produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject,” the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, which was part of the task force involved in the fatal arrest, said in a statement late Thursday.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension then said Friday, “Evidence at the scene indicates that the man fired his weapon from inside the vehicle.
“BCA crime scene personnel recovered a handgun as well as spent cartridge cases from inside the driver’s compartment,” the agency added.
The man killed has since been identified as Smith by local media and friends and family on social media.
Smith was convicted of aggravated robbery in 2017 and received a stayed prison sentence and was put on probation, according to WCCO.
A warrant was then issued for his arrest after he skipped a probation violation hearing in May — which would have sent him to prison, the outlet said.
Officers attempted to revive Smith after he was shot, but he was declared dead by paramedics on the scene. A woman who was in the car with the suspect sustained minor injuries from shattered glass, the statement said.
Several law-enforcement agencies had been involved in the fatal arrest, including local sheriff’s offices as well as the federal Department of Homeland Security, the statements said.
At least two officers opened fire — sheriff’s deputies from Hennepin County and Ramsey County, the BCA said. Minneapolis police were not involved in the task-force operation.
However, “there is no squad camera footage of the incident,” the BCA said, because “the US Marshal Service currently does not allow the use of body cameras for officers serving” on the fugitive task force involved.
Protesters shouted insults and anti-cop slogans at Minneapolis police, whose officers were deployed to provide perimeter support, the paper said.
The shooting quickly intensified angry protests already raging over the dismantling of George Floyd Square before any real details of the shooting emerged — with videos showing several large fires burning in the street.
Police fired flash bangs, and numerous buildings were vandalized and stores looted, police confirmed to KTSP.
“Stop burning s–t!” one infuriated woman told people standing staring at one of the fires, caught in a video by local journalist Rebecca Brannon.
The video journalist also said officers fired tear gas at protesters as she shared footage of a line of cops marching to protect areas around a large fire.
She also filmed a completely smashed-up CVS, as well as a mob of looters crawling through shattered windows to raid a T-mobile store.
Protesters called cops “f–king Nazis” and “white supremacists,” while graffitti on buildings included threats like “kill cops” and “no trial for them,” according to images shared online.
Yet protest group organizers admitted that they were responding even when they didn’t “know anything” about the shooting.
“We understand the anger and ire when we see these police shootings,” Pharoah Merritt of crime prevention group We Push for Peace told the local paper.
While arrests were made, a final tally was not initially released because the violence continued into the early hours Friday, officials told the Star Tribune.
The protests were around 3 miles from where George Floyd was killed by ex-cop Derek Chauvin in May last year — with local stores still boarded up from other riots since then, the local paper noted.
Protesters had already been out in force in anger at city workers finally dismantling the so-called “autonomous zone” that had blocked off traffic for a year at the site where Floyd was murdered.
As soon as workers removed concrete barriers and parts of the memorial blocking the street, around 150 protesters there started parking cars and piling pallets in the streets again, the Star Tribune said.
Many remained discussing future plans, with the crowd dwindling after news came of the shooting, reports said.
Mayor Jacob Frey said “it will be a bit touch and go and difficult over the next several days” as the city tries to enforce the new area, which will still keep the several-foot-tall statue of a raised fist.
As well as Floyd’s murder, the city was also rocked in April by the case of Daunte Wright, a black motorist who was fatally shot by an officer in the nearby suburb of Brooklyn Center.
The officers in Thursday’s shooting were all put on administrative leave. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will lead the investigation.
The BCA said it is “in the very early stages of its investigation” and “will provide additional information as the investigation progresses.
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