The Minneapolis Police Division on Thursday launched physique digital camera footage of its SWAT workforce fatally taking pictures a person who was mendacity on a sofa beneath a blanket when officers entered an condo to hold out a warrant earlier than 7 a.m.
The person, Amir Locke, 22, had a gun in his hand, the video exhibits, however it’s unclear whether or not he was conscious that law enforcement officials had entered the condo.
The graphic and temporary video exhibits an officer quietly turning a key within the condo door earlier than a number of officers file in and start to yell.
“Arms, palms!” one officer is heard shouting within the video.
“Get on the bottom!” one other yells.
One officer kicked the again of the sofa, jarring Mr. Locke and making a gun seen. The police fired at the very least 3 times in response.
Your entire encounter took lower than 10 seconds.
The SWAT workforce had been finishing up a warrant on Wednesday morning for the Saint Paul Police Division’s murder unit. The Minneapolis Police Division launched the physique digital camera video on Thursday evening, together with associated paperwork, however didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
In a information launch printed the day of the taking pictures, the Police Division stated that officers “loudly and repeatedly introduced their presence” earlier than they “encountered a male who was armed with a handgun pointed within the path of officers.”
“At one level, pictures have been fired,” the discharge continued, “and the grownup male suspect was struck.”
The police added that officers carried out emergency assist on Mr. Locke, who died at a close-by hospital.
The workplace of Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s household, said in a statement that Mr. Locke didn’t seem like the topic of the warrant and that he “legally possessed a firearm on the time of his loss of life.”
Mr. Crump in contrast the taking pictures of Mr. Locke, who was Black, to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical employee who was fatally shot by Louisville law enforcement officials in March 2020 throughout a botched raid on her condo.
“The tragic killing of Amir Locke exhibits a sample of no-knock warrants having lethal penalties for Black People,” Mr. Crump stated. “That is one more instance of why we have to put an finish to those sorts of search warrants in order that in the future, Black People will have the ability to sleep safely of their beds at evening.”
Jeff Storms, one other lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s household, stated Mr. Locke and his household had “needlessly suffered the worst potential consequence.”
“Our metropolis has to do higher,” Mr. Storms stated.
The Minneapolis Police Division has been beneath scrutiny since Officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by holding his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for greater than 9 minutes throughout an arrest in Might 2020.
Mr. Floyd’s loss of life generated widespread outrage, and protests throughout the nation that summer season referred to as for social justice and police reform. An try to vary policing in Minneapolis failed in November, when 56 p.c of voters rejected a poll measure that might have changed the town’s Police Division with a public security company.
The discharge of the footage of Mr. Locke’s loss of life got here extra rapidly than in previous circumstances, and after stress from Consultant Ilhan Omar and state officers.
Ten members of the Minneapolis delegation of the State Home of Representatives had referred to as for the footage to be launched instantly in a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Amelia Huffman, the town’s interim police chief.
“Minneapolis has an extended path earlier than us in establishing a trusting, efficient {and professional} relationship between its Police Division and group,” the representatives wrote. “Growing transparency round this tragic state of affairs shall be an vital step on this journey.”
The Police Division stated in a press release that one officer fired pictures at Mr. Locke, and it launched the personnel file of Officer Mark Hanneman. The state’s Bureau of Legal Apprehension is conducting an investigation into the taking pictures.