Ramsey County prosecutors announced Friday that a St. Paul officer was legally justified in shooting a man, who turned out to be unarmed, nearly a year ago.

The shooting happened after a St. Paul officer shouted for a man to show his hands — so police could see if he had a weapon — and to slowly come out of an apartment when police responded to a 911 call. The man dashed out at them, body camera footage released by the police department showed.

Officer Ryley Reschke yelled, “He’s got something!” and officer Josh Needham fired his gun three times. Brett Kohl Fraser, then 31, was shot once in the arm and sustained non-life threatening injuries.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office determined that charges against Needham were not justified under state law, the office said Friday.

No weapon was discovered on or near Fraser, according to a county attorney’s office memo summarizing the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigation. A replica handgun was found in a backpack in the apartment and didn’t belong to Fraser.

The officers responded to a 911 call after a man called at 12:22 a.m. on Jan. 6. He reported he heard a woman screaming in the apartment below his that she was being sexually assaulted by a man with a gun. He said the unit on Thomas Avenue between Mackubin and Arundel streets was supposed to be vacant of tenants. The man also reported he saw the man beating the woman, and that he saw the man with a gun before he called 911.

Officers encountered Fraser and Reschke loudly yelled, “Show your hands!” and “St. Paul Police!” Two seconds after he issued the last command, Fraser “ran out of the apartment door and charged at Officer Needham who was unable to safely retreat from the confined hallway area,” the memo said.

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Fraser was “seen holding a metallic object in his left hand” and extending it toward Needham, who thought it was a knife, the memo continued. Fraser told the BCA he thought he was holding his cellphone when he ran out of the apartment. Fraser’s right hand was behind him and Needham said he couldn’t see if he had a weapon in that hand.

Prosecutors concluded that Needham “was reasonable in his belief that his use of deadly force … was necessary to prevent being killed or suffering great bodily harm,” the memo said, also noting that Fraser told authorities he was a “dumb(expletive)” for charging at the officer and “that the officer could not have known that he did not have a weapon.”

Fraser was not charged in connection to the case.