'I am disgusted': Amir Locke's mom speaks after prosecutors refuse to charge cop who killed her son

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Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that they are “declining” to file criminal charges in the shooting death of Amir Locke, a Black man who was lying on a couch when police barged into a downtown Minneapolis apartment and killed Locke after he reached for a gun. Authorities were executing a no-knock search warrant just before 7 A.M. on Feb. 2, according to the offices of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman. “Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation, nor was he named in the search warrants. Amir Locke is a victim,” prosecutors said in a news release. “This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case.” 

Still, prosecutors said the law prevents them from filing charges against Mark Hanneman, the officer who shot Locke. “After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case,” prosecutors said in their release. “Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman.”

RELATED STORY: Family wants answers after 22-year-old Black man, Amir Locke, shot and killed during no-knock raid

“Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke.”

While both offices of the Hennepin County Attorney and Minnesota Attorney General agreed in a joint report that existing policies need “rethinking,” they said as prosecutors, they are limited in their role “to considering only whether criminal charges are warranted against any of the police officers involved in Mr. Locke’s death.”

They wrote in the report:

“To file a criminal charge against any of the police officers, and specifically against Officer Hanneman, the State must possess sufficient admissible evidence to prove every element of the criminal offense and disprove at least one element of any available affirmative defense beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a high burden, and it is one which is not met here.”

Prosecutors also cited the expert report of retired Capt. John Ryan, who concluded that “the use of deadly force by Officer Hanneman was consistent with the Minneapolis Police Department when considered in conjunction with generally accepted practices and training in law enforcement.”

Activist Al Sharpton, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, and Amir Locke’s mother, Karen Wells, made a case during a press conference Wednesday at Sharpton’s National Action Network Convention that those generally accepted standards need to change. ”I’m not gonna give up,” Wells said. “Right now, the Minneapolis police officer that executed my baby boy on 2/2/22, be prepared for this family because every time you take a step we’re going to be right behind you. This is not over.”

She directed her message directly to Hanneman and said, “the spirit of my baby is going to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“I am not disappointed. I am disgusted with the city of Minneapolis,” Wells said.

Although Minneapolis police promised they wouldn’t use no-knock search warrants some two years ago, they went on to seek some 90 of them between November 2020 and September 2021 alone, according to the journalism nonprofit MinnPost. Following the death of 26-year-old emergency medical technician Breonna Taylor, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey issued a policy in November 2020 requiring officers to identify themselves before executing no-knock warrants. Taylor was killed when police raided her home executing a no-knock warrant on Mar. 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky. She was sleeping when officers smashed through her door.

“Outside of limited, exigent circumstances, like a hostage situation, MPD officers will be required to announce their presence and purpose prior to entry,” Frey’s office said in a 2020 statement the Star Tribune obtained. The city tightened the restriction in March, implementing a new policy prohibiting the application for and execution of all no-knock warrants.

Ellison called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, an endeavor Republicans sabotaged in pandering to special interest groups working to protect the very people targeted with reform measures. The policing act is a comprehensive police reform bill to ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants and require body cameras, among other reform measures.

Crump said on Wednesday that the National Rifle Association should be joining their fight to get rid of no-knock warrants “because if it can happen to Amir, it can happen to Breonna Taylor, it can happen to your children, too.”

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