Bodycam video shows Duluth man ran at police, knife raised, before he was fatally shot

DULUTH — Police body camera footage released by the department Wednesday shows an undercover Duluth police officer fatally shooting a man who was running toward another officer with a raised knife earlier this year.

They called out warnings and used a Taser and 40mm sponge-round launcher to slow him in the seconds before — though neither worked.

The six-minute video offers three officers' perspectives on the shooting that killed Zachary James Shogren, 34, in a snowy alley in the Endion neighborhood on Feb. 24. The identities of the officers have been redacted and their voices distorted. They are members of the Lake Superior violent offender task force and work undercover.

In the days leading up to the incident, the Duluth man had made several violent threats against his family that were reported to the police. At the start of the video, Shogren is in the alley with a dog when officers pull in on two sides of him.

"Put your hands up," one officer yells, before calling for another to fire a nonlethal round. "Drop the knife!"

Shogren is warned that he will be tasered, and he raises the knife and runs toward an officer before he is shot. He drops to the snow — the blade a few inches away from his body.

"We've got to help him, we've got to help him, man," one of the officers calls.

Shogren died from the gunshot wounds later that night in a Duluth hospital.

Last week, the Cook County Attorney's Office said there was no basis for criminal charges against the officers. They were asked to review the case to avoid perceptions of bias that could occur if the review was conducted in St. Louis County.