Footage of the fatal 2021 shooting of Winston Boogie Smith by U.S. Marshals task force members in Minneapolis has been obtained by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension after years of trying to unlock a cellphone.

The disclosure marks the first time the agency independently corroborated the video’s existence, more than a year after the Star Tribune reported that it was recovered by a forensic analyst.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has unlocked a phone that captured video of the law enforcement shooting of Winston Smith Jr. in June 2021.

Investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says they have obtained cellphone video capturing the moment law enforcement shot and killed Winston Boogie Smith in a Minneapolis parking ramp in June 2021.

By unlocking his cellphone, state investigators say they have independently corroborated that an armed Winston Smith Jr. filmed members of a U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force surrounding his car at an Uptown Minneapolis parking ramp before they fatally shot him nearly 3½ years ago.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says they’ve unlocked cellphone video four years after an officer-involved shooting of a man on a parking deck in Uptown in the summer of 2021.

Smith, who was wanted on a firearm warrant, was shot on the roof of a Uptown parking ramp by members of a multi-agency task force trying to arrest him.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced that it has obtained an unseen video of the fatal shooting of Winston Smith by law enforcement in June of 2021. The BCA states that during its 2021 investigation of the shooting,