After second review, prosecutors will not charge federal task force members who killed Winston Smith

Prosecutors in Hennepin County announced Friday they won’t charge federal task force agents who fatally shot Winston Boogie Smith in an Uptown parking ramp in 2021, a long-delayed closure of a case that stretched on for years as state investigators failed to uncover critical video evidence.

The decision comes after the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office reviewed cell phone footage Smith, 32, recorded in his final moments as the U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force surrounded his Maserati that June day in Minneapolis. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released the video Friday afternoon.

The video is 34 seconds long and opens on Smith with a female passenger in the car who yells, “Winston please let them take you!” Smith appears distressed, glancing rapidly out the car window and back down at his phone. He gestures out the window, the agents are not seen, and says, “Just shoot.” At this point agents begin attempting to smash his window to gain access to the car. Smith again says, “Just shoot.” He then reaches into his center console, pulls out a handgun and begins firing as glass explodes inside the car. The redacted video does not show the moment when the agents shoot and kill Smith.

Prior to the release, no independent video had corroborated the law enforcement argument that Smith had pointed a gun at the agents. The lack of evidence, and the fact that the task force agents were not wearing body cameras to capture the encounter, fueled conflicting accounts of what precipitated the shooting and claims from protesters that Smith was “assassinated.”

In a complaint denial released Friday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said the video “clearly answers the question on the legality” of the shooting.

“While our review of the video does not change the conclusion that the use of force was lawful, this was a tragic outcome,” Moriarty said. “We appreciate our ongoing collaboration with law enforcement partners toward ensuring the safety of officers and the public.”

Kidale Smith, Winston’s brother, said seeing the video made it clear to him that his brother felt trapped.

“He was in fear for his life and sad because he may not get a chance to see his kids again,” Kidale Smith said.

The Star Tribune first reported on the existence of the video in October 2023. The account of the video from the Attorney’s Office matches what sources told the Star Tribune at that time. After the shooting, the BCA, the agency in charge of investigating law enforcement shootings in Minnesota, said it “wasn’t aware” of any video, and instead turned to the public for help finding footage. Though the BCA took possession of Smith’s phone after his death, the state agency never found the video Smith had recorded.

Then, more than two years later, Mark Lanterman, a private forensic expert hired as part of a civil case, recovered the footage, according to sources who were not authorized to speak on the record. The BCA again took custody of the phone after the newspaper’s report. It would be more than a year before its crime lab agents could extract the video from Smith’s cell phone.

On Nov. 26, 2024, the BCA notified the Attorney’s Office it had accessed the video and turned over the footage. The case was reopened for investigation.

Kidale Smith said the case continues to impact his family, and the fact that it took this long for the video to come out highlights the lack of transparency from law enforcement.

“I mean we’ve had to pretty much guesstimate when and what was going on with the little bit of information that we had,” he said. “All we wanted to know was what happened during that time. ... They want to release it now because they’ve been criticized and scrutinized. If it wasn’t for my brother’s video, taking it into his own hands, we wouldn’t have anything.”

The initial BCA investigation into the use of force by law enforcement was handled by Crow Wing County Attorney Donald F. Ryan. He ruled in October 2021 that the shooting was justified and that his office would not file charges against any of the agents.

Moriarty writes that the video does raise a “new question” about the tactics used by the task force agents even if they were following the training and policies of the U.S. Marshals.

“Their conduct was legal. However, the view provided by the video warrants a conversation about opportunities for policy change, training, and use of de-escalation techniques that could be employed the the hope of avoiding the outcome observed here, namely a person in distress resorting to violence.”

In declining to file charges against the task force agents, Moriarty says that conversation ultimately falls outside the scope of her office.

Brian Peters, the executive director of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, took issue with Moriarty questioning the tactics of the agents, referring to her statement as “shameful speculation” showing her “radical, anti-law enforcement bias.”

He added that the MPPOA was grateful no officers or innocent parties were hurt or killed in the incident.

With over $100 million in public funding per year and more than 500 employees, the BCA is the most technologically advanced law enforcement agency in Minnesota, home to the state‘s only crime lab accredited by the American National Standards Institute.

Over the past 18 months, the agency has rebuffed multiple requests from the Star Tribune for interviews or more information about why they couldn’t extricate a video off a cell phone when a private expert did so with far fewer resources. They refused to acknowledge the video existed until last November.

“We simply have been unable to retrieve it in our accredited digital media evidence laboratory using the technology we have available,” said Bonney Bowman, then a spokesperson for the BCA, in a statement last year.

She said commenting further would be “unethical” and a violation of data privacy laws.

Six months after the Star Tribune’s initial report, Bowman acknowledged the agency had never asked Lanterman for the video or how he found it.

“We have not spoken to Mr. Lanterman about this case or the video you claim he found,” she said.

Smith’s death came at a turbulent moment in Minneapolis, as trust in police had plummeted.

Seven weeks earlier, a jury had found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd. As Chauvin’s trial was streamed live across the world, a Brooklyn Center officer shot and killed Daunte Wright, another Black man, in a traffic stop, reigniting unrest that went on for a week and led state leaders to call in the National Guard.

It was just a week after the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s killing — and a day after the city reopened the memorial area know as “George Floyd Square” to vehicle traffic — when the agents shot Smith in the middle of the afternoon.

Smith was wanted on a warrant for skipping a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty to illegal firearm possession. On May 24, the mother of his then-7-year-old daughter reported his location to Minneapolis police and said he was armed. She later told the Star Tribune that she exaggerated the danger Smith posed to get police to show up faster, but that they never arrived.

On June 3, a sheriff’s deputy monitoring Smith’s social media account saw him post from a lunch date at Stella’s Fish Cafe on Lake Street. The U.S. Marshals Service’s North Star Violent Offender Task Force agents surveilled Smith as he finished his meal and rode the elevator to the top of the parking ramp.

When he got into the Maserati, the agents boxed him in with their vehicles. The confrontation lasted only a few moments. When it was over, Smith was pronounced dead on the scene.

The two agents who fired the fatal shots were deputies for the Ramsey County and Hennepin County sheriff’s departments, but the federal task force didn’t permit the use of body cameras. Sheriffs in Ramsey, Hennepin and Anoka counties all temporarily pulled their agents from the task force until that fall, when the Marshals Service updated its policy, in part due to the criticism over the Smith incident, to allow use of body cameras.

In a joint statement with the Hennepin County Attorney’s office released Friday, the U.S. Marshals said the agency “has committed resources and made advancements to ensure law enforcement officers are equipped and trained to properly use body-worn cameras to increase public trust in law enforcement and make communities safer.”

In her complaint denial, Moriarty notes that the marshals have increased the use of body cameras by its agents which “should help provide additional clarity” if an event like this happens again.

Some protesters said they didn’t believe the marshals' claim that Smith had a gun, pointing out that a Minneapolis police spokesman had initially called Floyd’s killing a “medical incident” before bystander video showed Chauvin pinning him by the neck. Skeptics of law enforcement’s version closed Uptown streets during rush hour and rallied outside the home of Ramona Dohman, then head of the U.S. Marshals Service in Minnesota, demanding her resignation. Rioters set dumpsters ablaze and looted shops, leading to dozens of arrests, as civil rights leaders called for the release of any video that could offer an objective view of the shooting. A drunk driver crashed into a crowd of protesters and killed a woman.

A civil rights lawsuit brought by Norhan Askar, the passenger in Smith’s car, is how the video first came to light. She sued the U.S. Marshals Task Force seeking damages for civil rights violations and accusing the officers of negligence for harming her, along with claims of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The suit was dismissed in 2022.