Minneapolis Suspends No-Knock Warrants After Police Killing

Amir Locke, 22, was fatally shot as the police carried out a search warrant. He was lying under a blanket until an officer kicked the couch, revealing a gun, body camera video shows.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis on Friday announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants one day after the Police Department released body camera footage of its SWAT team fatally shooting a man who was lying on a couch under a blanket during an early-morning raid.

The man who was killed, Amir Locke, 22, had a gun in his hand, but it is unclear whether he was aware that police officers had entered the apartment shortly before 7 a.m.

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who led the prosecutions of former police officers in the killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, said his office would join a review of the police shooting. The mayor said no-knock warrants could not be requested or conducted while the city evaluated its current policy.

The graphic and brief video released by the Police Department on Thursday night shows the encounter from Wednesday morning, when its SWAT team had been carrying out a warrant for the Saint Paul Police Department’s homicide unit.

In the video, an officer is seen quietly turning a key in the apartment door before officers file in and begin to yell.

“Police! Search warrant!” several officers are heard shouting.

“Hands, hands!” one officer says.

“Get on the ground!” another yells.

One officer kicked the back of the couch, jarring Mr. Locke and making a gun visible. The police fired at least three times in response.

The entire encounter took less than 10 seconds.

In a news release published the day of the shooting, the Police Department said officers had performed emergency aid on Mr. Locke, who died at a nearby hospital.

“I’m under no illusion that processing this video will be easy,” Amelia Huffman, the city’s interim police chief, said at a news conference on Thursday. “It won’t be. It shouldn’t be. These are wrenching videos to watch. They’re painful, but it’s necessary.”

Chief Huffman said that officers had a warrant for three locations in the apartment complex, and that Mr. Locke was not named in the original warrant.

Mr. Ellison, the state attorney general, said on Friday that his office would partner with the Hennepin County attorney’s office to review the shooting.

“Amir Locke’s life mattered,” Mr. Ellison said in a statement, promising the Locke family “a fair and thorough review.”

Mr. Ellison led the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who pleaded guilty to federal crimes for the killing of Mr. Floyd, and Kimberly Potter, a former Minnesota police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Mr. Wright.

The Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement that one officer fired shots at Mr. Locke, and it released the personnel file of Officer Mark Hanneman.

Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s family, compared the shooting of Mr. Locke, who was Black, to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was fatally shot by Louisville police officers in March 2020 during a botched raid on her apartment.

“If we learned anything from Breonna Taylor it is that no-knock warrants have deadly consequences for innocent, law-abiding Black citizens,” Mr. Crump said at a news conference on Friday.

No-knock warrants allow the police to enter property without first announcing their presence and are primarily used when there is concern that evidence will be destroyed or officers will be put in danger.

Tony Romanucci, another lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s family, said Mr. Locke had “no idea” who was in his apartment. “Had they announced who they were and why they were there, this tragedy could have been averted,” Mr. Romanucci said.

Mayor Frey said in a statement on Friday that no-knock warrants would not be allowed while the city reviewed its policy with experts who helped create “Breonna’s Law,” an ordinance passed after Ms. Taylor’s death that bans no-knock warrants in Louisville.

During the moratorium, which the mayor said was “to ensure safety of both the public and officers,” the police must knock, announce their presence and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering with a warrant.

Mr. Locke’s father, Andre Locke, said at the news conference that his son was the third oldest of eight siblings. He said his son had been working for the food delivery service DoorDash and was “a week away” from moving to Dallas, where his mother, Karen Wells, lives. Andre Locke said that several of his cousins worked in law enforcement and that one of them was a mentor to Amir.

“It was hurtful, it hurt deep to see my son executed, to see our son executed,” Mr. Locke said. “But the part that struck me the most was that he never got a chance to see or to know who killed him.”

Ms. Wells said she and her son would frequently talk on the FaceTime app when they were apart.

“I am going to miss just being able to see my son grow into a man, that’s what I am going to miss,” Ms. Wells said. “I am going to miss the fact that he didn’t, he won’t even get the chance to become a father and give us grandchildren.”

The Minneapolis Police Department has been under scrutiny since Officer Chauvin held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in May 2020.

Mr. Floyd’s death generated widespread outrage, and protests across the country that summer called for social justice and police reform. An attempt to change policing in Minneapolis failed in November, when 56 percent of voters rejected a ballot measure that would have replaced the city’s Police Department with a public safety agency.

The release of the footage of Mr. Locke’s death came more quickly than in past cases, and after pressure from Representative Ilhan Omar and state officials.

Ten members of the Minneapolis delegation of the State House of Representatives had called for the footage to be released immediately in a letter to Mayor Frey and Chief Huffman.

“Minneapolis has a long path before us in establishing a trusting, effective and professional relationship between its Police Department and community,” the representatives wrote.

Fresno police released video Friday from officer-worn cameras from the night a man tried to commit “suicide by cop,” according to police. The 26-year-old man identified as Ryan Brooks was critically wounded in the shooting about 10:30 p.m. Dec. 22, according to police. Officers shot Brooks outside Fort Washington Fitness, where the call appeared to originate, at the shopping center near North Friant Road and Fort Washington Avenue in northeast Fresno. The video shows the officers fire more than a dozen rounds, and continue to fire after Brooks went to the ground. Police say he was still a threat as he was seated. Lt. Bill Dooley said Friday that the officers involved have not been named but returned to work after a routine paid leave of absence related to the shooting.

He told The Bee that police would not say Friday how many rounds were fired or how long either officer has been with the department. Dooley said the video includes all of the information that investigators are ready to release and nothing further was available Friday to protect the investigation. “An officer-involved investigation is a thorough investigation,” he said.

It only came to light later, according to police, that Brooks himself made the 911 call that brought officers to the scene, where they found him driving erratically in the parking lot before stopping in a dirt field on the southwest corner nearest to Woodward Park. “I’m at Fort Washington Fitness,” he says on the 911 call. “There’s someone driving around saying they’re going to start shooting people.”

The newly released video also shows an officer speaking to Brooks over the phone as the officer is on his way to the scene, but Brooks does not admit to the intentions police have said he had. Police have said Brooks was trying to draw the attention of officers, and, when they stopped him, acted suspiciously with his hand in his pocket. He pulled what appeared to be a gun from his pocket and took a “shooter’s stance,” police said, before he was shot by two officers. Officers can be heard in the video repeatedly telling Brooks to take his hand out of his pocket, and saying “I’m going to shoot you” at least once. Brooks had his right hand in his pocket and his left arm was straight at his side, video shows, before pulling his hand out quickly. He was holding a green plastic toy gun in an effort to commit “suicide by cop,” Deputy Chief Burke Farrah said on the night of the shooting by police.

Upon reviewing the video, the community advocacy organization “Fresno Building Healthy Communities” demanded police reform and action to be taken by the City of Fresno and the Fresno Police Department. The organization characterized the police shooting of more than a dozen rounds as “recklessly fired” and said the community’s safety was put at risk. “This latest case involving Mr. Brooks further demonstrates that the Fresno Police Department is not equipped to respond to mental health calls,” the organization said in a news release. “We cannot allow this violent behavior to continue. Fresnans are still demanding real reform. It is unacceptable to continue to pay for a public safety system that is not safe at all.”

Attempts by The Bee to reach Brooks were unsuccessful. He has been released from Community Regional Medical Center, according to a hospital spokesperson. Brooks faces possible criminal charges for resisting police and brandishing an imitation firearm, both misdemeanors, police have said. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office has not received reports from investigators that would allow prosecutors to decide whether to charge Brooks, according to Assistant District Attorney Jerry Stanley, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. Brooks has not been charged as of Friday.

Morelia, Michoacan. After the crime that occurred this Sunday night in the Villas del Oriente subdivision, in Morelia, where a man was deprived of his life at close range, a video circulates that captures the strong scene of how the events occurred.

The homicide occurred at the corner of Revolución and Palacio de Bellas Artes avenues, whose victim was identified as José Héctor H., 39 years old.

A surveillance camera captured the exact moment in which José Héctor is shot by a subject wearing a sweatshirt and a cap.

The material shows the victim walking down the street, seconds later, the assailant, who came from the front, approached him and without saying a word began to shoot several times.

Even when he was on the ground, he did not stop shooting him, while the attacked man moved his feet again and again. The attacker stopped shooting, but seeing that José Héctor was still alive, he returned, drew his pistol again and finished him off.

The residents of this subdivision have anonymously expressed their fear and concern about the fact, as they say, families live with minors.

They express that now they are afraid to leave their homes and ask the authorities to settle in the area in order to ensure the integrity of the inhabitants.

"I am afraid to even look out the window and obviously I will not let my son go out to play with his friends, it is incredible that in the middle of the street, outside our houses, these crimes are discussed, what happens with the stray bullets, "said one neighbor who says that the patrols "or their lights".