After a software program spent more than a year trying 780,000 potential passwords, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced Tuesday that it was able to unlock a cell phone with video capturing events the day Winston Smith was fatally shot by two deputies.

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.

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.

“After accessing the video on Winston Smith’s phone, the BCA immediately informed our office and provided it to us. It is currently under review,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said. “We appreciate the BCA’s due diligence and promptness in sharing the video after it was recovered. We will communicate further updates as available.”

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.

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.

The Minnesota BCA has recovered a video showing the shooting of Winston Smith by a law enforcement task force in Minneapolis.

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.