Minneapolis: Protests Rage after Cops Fatally Shoot Fugitive Who Fired At Them

By Staff, Agencies

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.