“Amir Locke is a victim,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said, but prosecutors determined the officer was justified in firing his weapon.
Minnesota prosecutors declined to file charges Wednesday against a Minneapolis police SWAT team officer who fatally shot Amir Locke while executing an early morning no-knock search warrant in a downtown apartment in February. Locke,22, who was Black, was staying on a couch in the apartment when authorities entered it on Feb.2 without knocking as part of an investigation into a homicide in neighboring St. Paul. His parents have said that from what they saw of the police body camera footage, it appeared that their son was startled awake. His mother, Karen Wells, has called his death “an execution.” Their attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Locke, who was not named in the warrant, was shot seconds after authorities say he pointed a gun in the direction of officers. Locke’s family has questioned that. The body camera footage shows Locke holding a gun before he was shot. Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman, whose offices reviewed the case, said they determined that Officer Mark Hanneman was justified in firing his weapon. “There is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case. 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,” Ellison and Freeman said in a joint statement. Locke’s death came as three former Minneapolis police officers were on trial in federal court in St. Paul in George Floyd’s killing. It sparked protests and a reexamination of no-knock search warrants.
