Amir Locke and Breonna’s Law
A potential nationwide ban of no-knock warrants in the wake of another police shooting
By: Olivia Hines
Another tragedy has shaken the core of Minneapolis after the police-related death of 22-year old Amir Locke. Tensions continue to rise against the Minneapolis Police Department after the death of George Floyd, which sparked a summer of BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests within the city of Minneapolis, and the botched no-knock raid that caused Breonna Taylor’s death in Louisville, Kentucky. Calls for police reform have been prevalent within public and political matters. One such current matter of reform is the issue of no-knock warrants.
On Wednesday, February 2 at 6:48 a.m. a SWAT team raided a downtown apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota which resulted in the death of a black man. He was identified on Thursday, February 4 as 22-year-old Amri Locke.
Body-cam footage revealed officers using a key to open the apartment. Upon entering, the police shouted “Police, search warrant!”, “Hands!” and “Get on the ground!”. One officer kicks a sectional, and Locke, wrapped in blankets, stands up from the couch holding a pistol in his hands. Three shots are heard, and the video ends. The video only lasts 15 seconds in total. An incident report stated Amir Locke had two chest wounds, and one wound on his right wrist.
In their official response that night, the Minneapolis Police Department stated that Amir Locke had pointed a loaded gun in “the direction of officers”. A still from the body camera footage shows Locke holding the gun, pointed downward, with his finger laid aside the barrel. Amir Locke’s family and Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and community activist, confirmed Locke was a licensed gun owner with a conceal and carry permit.
Locke’s family also confirmed that he didn’t live in the residence. He wasn’t one of the three suspects on the search warrant, and he wasn’t involved in any illegal trouble.
The search warrant in question, as stated by Interim Chief Amelia Huffman, was a homicide investigation undertaken by the St. Paul Police Department. The city had both knock and no-knock warrants available for the residence in question. In a news conference, Huffman stated Locke’s name wasn’t on the search warrant, and she said, it isn’t clear whether or not Amir Locke is connected to the homicide investigation. So far, the agency has released few details about the case. However, public documents released Thursday, February 3 state that Officer Mark Hanneman fatally shot Amir Locke.
Huffman defended Hanneman’s actions, saying, “The still shot shows the image of the firearm in the subject's hands, at the best possible moment when the lighting was fully on him. That's the moment when the officer had to make a split-second decision to assess the circumstances and to determine whether he felt like there was an articulable threat, that the threat was of imminent harm, great bodily harm or death, and that he needed to take action right then to protect himself and his partners."
Hanneman was hired in 2015. Since then, he’s had four formal complaints lodged against him. Three of those complaints were closed without discipline, with no given details. The fourth remains open, as shown by citizen group Communities United Against Police Brutality, but also lacks details.
After the incident, Levy Armstrong and other activists confronted the mayor and interim police chief, calling the city’s release of information “the anatomy of a cover-up”.
At the time of writing, Locke’s mother, Karen Locke, has referred questioning to attorney lawyer, Ben Crump, who has won huge settlements for the families of those killed by the police, including $27 million for the family of George Floyd. In a planned news conference on Friday, February 4, Locke’s family spoke about the incident.
Locke’s father, Andre Locke, through devastated tears, stated, “I’ve seen it happen…I’ve seen it happen too many times.” His mother firmly stated, “He was executed by the MPD, and I want the police officer that murdered my son to be prosecuted and fired.” The hearts of many reach out to the mourning family after the death of their beloved son.
Sadly, the death of Amri Locke has brought the public’s focus back to how the police carry out no-knock warrants.
No-knock warrants are search warrants approved by judges that allow police to enter premises without notifying residents. They’ve been blamed for several killings of Black people, most notably Breonna Taylor. The usage of no-knock warrants has prompted criminal prosecutions against police officers and bipartisan calls to curtail their usage. These warrants were constructed under the Nixon administration. The brainchild of a 28-year-old Senate staffer and campaign aide. The premise of no-knock warrants was to show, as investigative journalist Radley Balko, stated, “how tough we [law enforcement officers] were on crime and drugs by letting cops kick down doors without announcing themselves first.” The aide, later in his career, admitted his regret and it’s noted as one of his biggest political mistakes. No-knock warrants were implemented at a federal level at the start of Nixon’s administration, but due to controversy and several botched and mistaken drug raids nationwide, the law was repealed a few years later.
During the 1980s, no-knock warrants were re-implemented and became widespread as President Reagan’s proclaimed war on drugs ramped up and became militarized. Primarily, they were used to serve warrants for people suspected of drug crimes so contraband wouldn’t be removed.
Currently, no-knock warrants are federally legal and still used, with the reasons for their continued usage according to law enforcement agencies being to protect the safety of police officers. The argument for no-knock warrants protecting the safety of police officers continues to be used to justify the implementation of these dangerous and controversial search warrants.
At the moment, no-knock warrants are only banned in Oregon, Florida, and Lousiville, Kentucky. In September 2021, the Justice Department curtailed the use of no-knock warrants by federal agents without approval from federal prosecutors and ranking agency officials, the exception being if “[an agent] has reasonable grounds to believe that knocking and announcing the agent’s presence would create an imminent threat of physical violence to the agent and/or other person.” Despite all the controversies, detriments, and limitations of no-knock warrants, they still continued to be used in law enforcement, with several states actively enacting laws authorizing the usage of no-knock warrants.
On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor was shot eight times by police, in the middle of the night, during a botched no-knock raid. Three police officers had stormed her apartment using a battering ram. Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old black woman and healthcare worker. She was shot in her apartment during a drug raid. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was alleged to have reached for his gun and fired at police.
His lawyers later clarified he was a licensed gun owner, and used his gun because he suspected the policemen were robbers. The suspect the officers were searching for had already been apprehended in a different location. Her mother, Tamika Palmer, has since filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the three officers.
After the death of Breonna Taylor, Louisville City Council unanimously banned the use of no-knock warrants. after the incident. Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul also introduced a bill, titled “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act”, that would ban the practice for federal law enforcement agents.
The bill requires any federal law enforcement officer to announce their presence and purpose before executing a warrant. It further required the same policy police to be implemented in every state or local law enforcement agency receiving funds from the Justice Department. It is Breonna’s Law that city officials and police officers are attempting to recreate and implement in Minneapolis.
Following the release of the bodycam footage, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “the video raises as many questions as it does answers” and that the city was pursuing these answers “as quickly as possible and in a transparent fashion”. On Friday, February 4, Frey issued a moratorium, or temporary ban, on the request and execution of no-knock warrants, with the exception of an imminent threat approved by the police chief. Already the ban has raised several questions, rather than answers.
In 2020, the city of Minneapolis revised policies regarding most no-knock warrants. The new policy wasn’t a ban on the practice. Police officers were required to announce their presence and purpose before entry, similar to a knock warrant, with few more exceptions than the current moratorium. Under Minnesota state law, the chief of police or a designee, an individual designated to sign no-knock warrants, and another superior officer must sign off on a no-knock warrant application before seeking judicial approval. Minnesota state law limits the timeframe of no-knock warrants to be executed between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m with the exception of night searches being deemed “necessary to prevent the loss, destruction or removal of the objects of the search or to protect the searchers or the public”. Amir Locke was killed 12 minutes before the window. No evidence has been provided for the reasoning behind the timing. Neither the search warrant application nor the judge who approved it have been released.
While the moratorium is in place, the mayor and police leaders are working with experts that shaped Breonna’s Law, the ban imposed in Lousiville. Kentucky in 2020.
To put it bluntly, no-knock warrants should be banned nationwide. Governor Tim Walz has called for further reform to Minnesota's no-knock warrant law. In a public statement, Gov. Walz said, "To ensure the safety of both residents and law enforcement, we need to make additional changes to police policies and practices regarding the execution of search warrants.”
However, no policy changes were outlined by Gov. Walz, continuing a theme of symbolic bans and social movement towards police reform without developing proper methods or means to enforce these new laws. Already, Minnesota House Democrats had sought to impose stricter restrictions on no-knock warrants in March 2021. These limitations would’ve included cases of first-degree murder investigations, hostage-taking, kidnapping, terrorism, or human trafficking. The bill failed because of the restrictions on police investigations and the imposed requirement of a judge’s approval.
Many continue to grapple with the belief that no-knock warrants protect the safety of officers, ignoring the staggering potential for violence to both occupants and police. As of 2020, an average of 8-10 cases occur per year where innocent individuals are killed in no-knock raids. Another 20-30 cases result in the death of individuals possessing drugs and guns. St. Cloud Police Chief Blair Anderson stated in opposition to the March 2021 bill: "I am opposed to this bill because it is dangerous and it is going to create an exponentially higher level of danger in an already dangerous profession. This (no-knock warrants) is one of our most effective tools that we use. I cannot overstate that we do treat this with the proper reverence that it deserves."
When the key difference between a no-knock warrant and a knock warrant involves the announcement of a law enforcement officer’s presence and purpose, it only amounts to a difference in seconds. Seconds can save a few lives, but not all. The “reasonable” time between knock-and-announce and entering the residence is subjective to the approval of judges and police officers. Meaning, there is no definitive standard or protocol that police officers follow other than their own personal judgments during intense, high-stress situations. The standard of personal judgment is approved by judges based on police officers’ reasonings, despite the negative consequences of those officers’ actions. The vagueness of “reasonable” time, “imminent threat” or any potential physical violence directed towards police officers outlined in law enforcement policies is detrimental to the safety of civilians.
Currently, MPD is under investigation by Minnesota State’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. While investigations continue and new reform policies and laws restricting and banning the usage of no-knock warrants are built, it is important for the public to understand this isn’t the end. Nor will these new laws and investigations immediately solve the current problems. In roughly 16 states where no-knock warrants aren’t commonly carried out, police officers are still known to make unannounced entrance under standard warrants.
Already, the government and law enforcement have struggled to enforce laws that have been promised to be implemented years ago. They continue to deny transparency in these operations and investigations, and by doing so, public discourse and mistrust continue to thrive. Though it is necessary for no-knock warrants to be banned nationwide, these warrants cannot be created into a boogieman. The issues surrounding police brutality and racism won’t end with legislation eradicating the usage of no-knock warrants. These issues will persist until reform policies with effective methods of enforcement and transparency of information are provided to the public.