On Wednesday, Minneapolis police executed a no-knock warrant on a downtown apartment and then in the next nine seconds, proceeded to shoot and kill 22-year-old Amir Locke, as he lay wrapped up in a blanket on a couch. Interim police Chief Amelia Huffman told reporters that the shooting took place around 7 AM. The officers who entered the apartment were SWAT team members acting on warrants in service of the St. Paul Police Department.

Huffman said that Locke reached over and grabbed a gun that was next to where he was possibly sleeping, and pointed it “in the direction of officers.” This is why, Huffman says, the police, in nine seconds, killed him. But Locke’s family wants some serious answers as body camera footage and the fact that Locke legally owned his gun and that Locke’s name wasn’t even on any of the warrants used to make this invasion legal, among other things, should have precluded him—and frankly anybody—from this kind of execution. 

In the video, which can be seen below, heavily armed and armored SWAT team members appear to use a key to enter the apartment through the door. There is no knocking or any announcement before multiple police bust into the dark apartment, with lights on their guns (and possibly helmets), and begin all yelling at the same time that they are police and who knows what else; in the cacophony of their entrance it is confusing. Within seconds, they come upon a semicircle-shaped couch and a person mostly wrapped in a white comforter, very likely asleep. He was startled awake by one of the officers kicking the sectional sofa he was on. He reaches over to an ottoman-looking piece of furniture (possibly a small side table) and holds what appears to be a handgun. He does not have it pointed at the officers when they begin shooting. He falls to the ground between the sofa and side table/ottoman.

The Washington Post reports that Locke suffered two gunshot wounds to the chest and one in his right wrist. Locke was taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. In a surprising piece of matter of fact honesty, Republican Rob Doar, spokesman for the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, told the Post: “Mr. Locke did what many of us might do in the same confusing circumstances, he reached for a legal means of self-defense while he sought to understand what was happening.” 

Locke was called a “suspect” four separate times during the press conference but wasn’t named on any of the warrants.

According to the Associated Press, the city of Minneapolis identified the officer involved in the Locke shooting as Mark Hanneman. And while the city played coy about whether or not the incident was connected to the controversial use of no-knock warrants, the fact that body cam footage shows that the officers used a key or key fob and did not knock or announce themselves before entering the residence led people to conclude that this was what happened. On Friday, KARE 11 reporter A.J. Lagoe said that police sources told him that St. Paul police initially did not ask for a no-knock warrant, but that the Minneapolis Police Department insisted on it before going and killing Locke.

The family of Locke are understandably devastated and angry. Initially police suggested Locke pointed his gun at police, before changing it to “in the direction of” police. After watching the video, the idea that what took place is anything more than an execution is hard to generate as a narrative. Forget about the fact that Locke’s firearm was legal, and, if you are a big Second Amendment person, it’s supposed to be there to defend your home from an invasion like this one. Imagine if Locke were the exact person the police were looking for and pretend the gun he had in his possession was illegally gotten. What purpose does this raid serve? After they afraid he’s going to flush the murder weapon down the toilet? That he’s going to begin shooting them through the door?

Let’s break a few simple things down about no-knock raids like this. The Minneapolis Police Department has attempted to add danger to the raid, saying it was in service of a homicide investigation. However, unless you are arguing that you need a shock and awe campaign and a no-knock warrant because you have evidence showing that someone is about to be murdered and you need to run into a residence as a result, there is virtually no reason for no-knock warrants. The fact of the matter is, starting gun fights with citizens because you launch yourself into their private residence seems a lot more like murder entrapment than anything else.

No-knock warrants have been the excuse for multiple shooting deaths of (usually) Black citizens by law enforcement. Breonna Taylor was a 25-year-old EMT who was shot and killed in a hail of bullets by Kentucky police who busted into her home while she was asleep with her boyfriend.

Civil rights lawyer and activist Nekima Levy Armstrong interrupted the mayor and interim police chief’s press conference to demand a little more seriousness and less BS.

If one were to believe that an armed and dangerous person was residing in a residence, which is what the Minneapolis Police Department is wanting us all to speculate happened here, what purpose does an early morning surprise raid serve? Even if the person killed was a murderer—and there is no reason to believe Locke did anything wrong at all—this isn’t a law enforcement tool that leads to anything more than “extra-judicial justice.”

This is another strike against Mayor Jacob Frey, who has paid a lot of lip service to ending and looking into “no-knock” warrants used by his city’s police force. Minnesota police, specifically, have been the perpetrators of recorded citizen homicides from gun-owner and school worker Philando Castile—shot and killed in front of his girlfriend and her grade-school daughter—to George Floyd, who had the life pressed out of him by former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin. Frey has spoken to the defunding of the police and reforming things like no-knock warrants, but then has done virtually the opposite of all of those things. Minneapolis police announced in November 2020 that they would no longer practice no-knock search warrants, then proceeded to ask for 90 of them over the following year.

Karen Wells, Amir Locke’s mother, told reporters, “What I’ll miss most about Amir, my baby boy, is his laugh. His beautiful smile.”

The video is available online here. It is both graphic and traumatic and we are choosing not to share it within this story.

Saturday, Feb 5, 2022 · 12:04:29 AM +00:00 · Walter Einenkel

Mayor Jacob Frey announced an immediate “moratorium” on no-knock warrants, which makes one wonder what has he been doing for the last couple of years exactly.