The wife of a man fatally shot by St. Paul police two years ago faces criminal charges after authorities say she threatened to shoot officers in retaliation.
Kay Maureen Smith, 42, was charged Thursday with one count of threats of violence for the incident, which took place shortly after midnight Wednesday, according to the criminal complaint filed against her in Ramsey County District Court.
Smith’s husband, Jaffort Smith, was fatally shot by four St. Paul police officers in the spring of 2016 after they observed him shoot a female companion in the face before starting to fire at officers, according to legal documents.
A grand jury subsequently determined that the officers’ use of deadly force was justified.
Upset about the circumstances of his death, Smith called a non-emergency telephone number for Ramsey County dispatch just before 12:30 am. Wednesday and asked to speak to a supervisor, the complaint said.
She went on to warn the dispatcher that she knew where the four officers involved in her husband’s shooting lived and warned that their lives were in “jeopardy.”
“Watch how this turns out for the cops because I’m going to turn it back on them,” Smith told the dispatcher, according to the criminal complaint. “Tell the people who killed my husband to watch their lives, they deserved to die (because) they are not free.”
“Tell all four of them their lives are in jeopardy,” she allegedly continued. “They killed my husband and I want them to acknowledge it before I shoot all four of them.
Shortly thereafter, dispatch received a 911 call from someone who said she was Smith’s friend. The woman told the dispatcher that Smith was in “a bad place” as well as “suicidal” and relayed where officers could find her.
Smith was arrested by New Brighton police at her place of business, the complaint said.
En route to jail, Smith proceeded to threaten her arresting officers and was also self-injurious, according to the complaint.
In a later interview, she told investigators she’d been drinking the night before and was “upset about her husband being shot by police,” the complaint said
She also reportedly revealed that she’s been diagnosed with mental health conditions following her husband’s death and was also suicidal.
She denied knowing where the officers who shot him live and said she does not own a gun, the complaint said.
She also referred to her actions as a “mistake.”
Smith is banned from owning a firearm due to a domestic-assault related conviction in Montana in 2009, legal documents say.
She is scheduled to make her first court appearance on her latest charge Thursday afternoon.
No attorney was listed for her in court records.
Corydon Nilsson — founder of The New North, a police-accountability watchdog group that focuses on victims with mental illnesses — has known Smith for about two years and said he was sad to hear the news. He met Smith when she came to protests outside the Governor’s Residence after Philando Castile was fatally shot by a St. Anthony police officer.
“She’s always been a loving person in my interactions with her and I would have to think that grieving played a large factor in her decision to allegedly make threats,” Nilsson said Thursday.