MINNEAPOLIS — Several people were arrested for "riotous behavior" during a protest late Friday and early Saturday at the Uptown Minneapolis site where law enforcement shot and killed Winston Smith on Thursday, police said.
It was the second night of protests and arrests at W. Lake Street and S. Girard Avenue, police spokesman John Elder said in a news release. Through Friday evening and overnight, protesters had been blocking Lake Street, disrupting traffic and engaging in several standoffs with Minneapolis police officers.
Earlier Friday, several peaceful vigils and rallies were held in both Minneapolis and St. Paul to protest Smith's death.
Members of a federal fugitive task force shot and killed Smith during an attempted arrest Thursday afternoon in an Uptown parking ramp.
State investigators say Smith, 32, fired a gun from his vehicle as deputies closed in, but there is no body camera or squad dashcam footage of the shooting.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is investigating the shooting, said members of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force approached Smith, who was in a parked car atop a parking ramp at W. Lake Street and S. Fremont Avenue.
The man shot and killed by law enforcement in the Uptown area of Minneapolis was identified as Winston Boogie Smith. State investigators said Friday he fired at officers, although there is no footage of the incident.
Authorities said task force members were tipped off to the location of a man wanted on a warrant for being a felon in possession of a gun and tried to arrest him. A preliminary investigation shows that a Hennepin County sheriff's deputy and a Ramsey County deputy shot Smith, reportedly after he brandished a gun. Smith died at the scene.
Authorities say they recovered a handgun and spent shell casings from Smith's car, suggesting that he fired a weapon at some point.
A 27-year-old woman who was sitting next to Smith on the passenger side was injured by shattered glass.
State authorities have said there is no squad camera footage, and the officers involved also weren't wearing body cameras because they were operating under the rules of the U.S. Marshals' North Star Fugitive Task Force, which they say don't allow the devices.
Several police departments across the country, including St. Paul, have in recent years pulled their officers from federal task forces because they weren't allowed to wear body cameras. Last October, the U.S. Department of Justice said it had changed its policy to permit state, local, territorial and tribal task forces to use body-worn cameras "while serving arrest warrants, or during other planned arrest operations, and during the execution of search warrants."
On Saturday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for Minnesota issued a statement confirming the change in policy to permit task force officers to wear body cameras, adding that the U.S. Marshals Service has been phasing in that policy since February.
Asked about that statement, Minnesota Department of Public Safety spokesman Bruce Gordon said that his previous claim that the task force involved in Thursday's situation "currently" does not allow the use of body cameras was correct and that the U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for phasing in their use.
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(Star Tribune staff writer Andy Mannix contributed to this report.)
