MINNEAPOLIS — Chanting the title of Amir Locke, a big crowd of protesters marched in frigid climate in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday to voice exasperation and anger over the conduct of regulation enforcement officers, practically two years after the homicide of George Floyd.
Mr. Locke, 22, was fatally shot in an early morning raid on Wednesday when a SWAT crew for the Minneapolis Police Division carried out a search warrant for the police in close by St. Paul involving a murder.
Mr. Locke was not named as a suspect within the warrant, in response to authorities.
Tensions over racial justice and police violence have been already elevated within the Twin Cities earlier than the demise of Mr. Locke, who was Black. The federal trial in opposition to the three former Minneapolis cops who stood by as Derek Chauvin, their superior officer, knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck has been underway since Jan. 24.
A graphic and temporary physique digicam video of the raid involving Mr. Locke launched by the Minneapolis Police Division on Thursday evening exhibits an officer quietly turning a key within the house door earlier than officers enter the house and start to shout.
“Police! Search warrant!” they yell.
One officer kicked the again of the sofa, the place Mr. Locke was huddled beneath a blanket, jarring Mr. Locke and making a gun seen. The police fired not less than thrice in response.
Mr. Locke died of a number of gunshot wounds, in response to a report from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.
Jeanelle Austin attended the protest draped in a white comforter not in contrast to the blanket Mr. Locke had over him when he was killed.
“I don’t know what at this time will deliver,” she mentioned. “However we want one thing totally different. We will’t maintain persevering with with extra of the identical. We’re dying.”
The killing of Mr. Locke has additionally elevated scrutiny of the usage of so-called no-knock warrants and solid doubts on the effectiveness of the efforts in Minneapolis to limit the usage of these shock searches.
No-knock warrants enable the police to enter property with out first saying their presence and are primarily used when there’s concern that proof shall be destroyed or officers shall be put in peril.
The Police Division had obtained each knock and no-knock warrants for searches at three models within the house complicated in order that officers may determine which was acceptable within the second, Amelia Huffman, the interim police chief in Minneapolis, mentioned at a information convention on Thursday.
Nor was Mr. Locke a resident of the house, in response to Jeff Storms, a lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s household, who mentioned that Mr. Locke was staying there with a cousin.
Within the wake of nationwide outcry over the homicide of Mr. Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Mayor Jacob Frey issued a brand new coverage in 2020 requiring officers executing no-knock warrants to announce their presence and goal earlier than they enter apart from excessive circumstances. Earlier than the coverage, the division executed 139 no-knock warrants per 12 months, in response to the mayor’s workplace.
This 12 months, the variety of no-knock warrants is already on monitor to succeed in about the identical quantity: 11 have up to now been issued this 12 months.
“It’s change into clear that no knock warrants proceed to be overly sought by the Minneapolis Police Division and overly granted,” Mr. Storms mentioned.
Mr. Storms additionally mentioned that the video exhibits that Mr. Locke’s finger was not on the set off when he was shot, however relatively on the barrel, and that the gun was pointed down. On the information convention on Thursday, Ms. Huffman mentioned that the officer who shot Mr. Locke was exterior the body of the video however within the “path of that barrel rising from the blanket.”
The capturing prompted Mr. Frey to announce on Friday a moratorium on no-knock warrants within the metropolis. Through the moratorium, the town will work with DeRay Mckesson, a racial justice activist, and Dr. Pete Kraska, a felony justice knowledgeable at Jap Kentucky College, to evaluate and recommend revisions to the division’s coverage.
Stacey Burns, who protested in downtown Minneapolis on Saturday, mentioned she was annoyed on the lack of motion on police reform in Minneapolis.
“It’s simply chipping away on the edges — we’ll make this adjustment, we’ll make this reform — after which they don’t even try this,” Ms. Burns mentioned. “After which that is what occurs. One other younger Black man together with his entire future forward of him is lifeless.”