# Minneapolis, MN



## RodneyFarva (Jan 18, 2007)

A, Murder investigation + singed search warrant by judge 
+
B, Swat team entering (lawfully) 
+
C, Guy sleeping with a gun in his hand on the couch of a wanted suspect in a on going homicide investigation.
+
D, Guy on couch points a firearm at an officer causing the officer to believe he is now a threat and possibly the suspect they were there for.

Equals Justified homicide. 












Minneapolis, MN – Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has released bodycam footage that captured the moment when a suspect pointed a gun at police on Wednesday as they were executing a warrant in connection with a homicide investigation (video below).

The incident occurred at 1117 South Marquette Avenue on the seventh floor of the Bolero Flats apartment building at approximately 6:48 a.m. on Feb. 2, KSTP reported.

According to Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Interim Chief Amelia Huffman, an eight-person MPD SWAT team was executing the warrant in connection with a St. Paul Police Department (SPPD) homicide investigation.

Bodycam footage released Thursday showed an officer unlocking the apartment door just before the officers “loudly and repeatedly announced their presence” and entered the apartment, the MPD said in a news release.

They continued announcing themselves as they made their way into the living room area towards a couch, where a figure could be seen moving beneath a white blanket.

One officer kicked the couch and ordered the suspect to get onto the ground.

That’s when the suspect pointed a handgun in another officers’ direction, resulting in the officer firing at him multiple times, according to the press release.

“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,” Chief Huffman said, according to Bring Me The News.

“Ultimately, that decision, whether that threshold was met will be examined by the county attorney’s office that reviews this case,” she added.

MPD Officer Mark Hanneman, a seven-year veteran of the department, was later identified as the officer who shot the armed suspect, KMSP reported.

“Officers immediately provided emergency aid and carried the suspect down to the lobby to meet paramedics,” the MPD said in the press release.

The suspect was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he succumbed to his wounds.

He was later identified as 22-year-old Amir Locke, KMSP reported.

According to a Minneapolis Fire Department incident report, Locke was shot once in the right wrist and twice in the chest, according to KSTP.

The Locke family’s attorneys, Jeff Storms and Ben Crump, said Locke was not named in the search warrant and legally possessed the gun he pointed at police, KMSP reported.

Neither of those factors are relevant in determining if the officer’s shooting of Locke was legal.

“Like the case of Breonna Taylor, the tragic killing of Amir Locke shows a pattern of no-knock warrants having deadly consequences for Black Americans,” Crump wrote in a statement, according to KMSP.

“This is yet another example of why we need to put an end to these kinds of search warrants so that one day, Black Americans will be able to sleep safely in their beds at night,” he continued. “We will continue pushing for answers in this case so that Amir’s grieving family can get the closure they deserve.”

Chief Huffman said investigators are still looking into “if or how Mr. Locke is connected” to the homicide case in St. Paul, Bring Me The News reported.

“More information will be coming as St. Paul digs further into the case,” she added.

Minneapolis Ward 10 City Councilwoman Aisha Chughtai declared the shooting of Locke to be a murder by police.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is handling the ongoing investigation into the fatal officer-involved shooting, KSTP reported.

“Our thoughts are with the family and friends who loved the man who lost his life today and with the community because these events are a wrenching loss,” Chief Huffman said. “They’re traumatic not only for those who knew him but everyone who lives in Minneapolis and for the officers who were on the scene as well.”

Protesters and activists denounced the MPD’s actions and said they used excessive force while executing the “no-knock warrant,” KSTP reported.

They’ve demanded Officer Hanneman be arrested and charged with murder, according to WCCO.

“[Locke] was in his apartment minding his own business at 6:30 in the morning when many of us are still in our bed sleeping,” Communities Against Police Brutality President Michelle Gross declared. “It was appalling to me that you cannot sleep in your own home without police coming in on a no-knock warrant.”

Minneapolis activist Toussaint Morrison called the operation “reckless” and said the MPD’s SWAT team is like a group of “deputized cowboys shooting wherever they want,” KSTP reported.

Civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong said the MPD shouldn’t have even been helping the SPPD with its homicide case in the first place and argued the SPPD should “carry out its own dirty work.”

“We have no information from [St. Paul police] about what this warrant even consisted of and why it was so urgent to bust into somebody’s apartment in the wee hours of the morning,” Levy Armstrong complained.

Frey and Chief Huffman held a press conference after releasing the bodycam footage Thursday night, but ended up walking out after being accosted by activists, KMSP reported.

“How is walking out of a press conference transparency?” one protester screamed as the police chief and the mayor left the room. “You are a murderer!”


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## CCCSD (Jul 30, 2017)

I didn’t watch the video. Im assuming the deceased is colored?


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## RodneyFarva (Jan 18, 2007)

Yes, and armed with a FN hand gun loaded with blue tipped 5.7 x 28mm nato rounds, staying over a murder suspect residents. Sleeping on his couch with the gun at the ready almost like he was expecting somthing or someone to enter. But then the pigs broke in and out right murdered a child (22yo) that was an aspiring musical artist.


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## CCCSD (Jul 30, 2017)

So. A murdered aspiring rapper who was the bestest person in the world. 
Guessed it.


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## trueblue (Jan 21, 2008)

Ho-Hum🥱🥱, I’m going to read the postings in the “Wanted to Buy” section…….

PS-Note to all the other a#$holes that want to point guns at us……We ARE going to respond with appropriate levels of force!!


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## Kilvinsky (Jan 15, 2007)

A lawyer representing the family said that murder charges are being demanded while the civil suit is being prepared. Of course he had the gun because he had been threatened by law enforcement in the past and was scared. Wherein he was often oppressed, he anticipated being oppressed even while staying in the home of a friend, hence the firearm.


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## Tango_Sierra (May 20, 2010)

I can’t believe ( but probably can) the media slows the footage down and shows the gun in the suspects hand, finger was off the trigger, pointed away from officers and proclaiming he wasn’t a threat at that moment ! When we all know in reality it only takes a nano second to aim and fire that gun! To them that’s not good enough for self defense anymore. Again we are/at getting to the point where it’s acceptable for the dirtbag to fire the first shot and only then it might be ok to fire back.


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## CCCSD (Jul 30, 2017)

I’m waiting for the change to: “Officers may ONLY draw their weapon AFTER being fired upon. An Officer must expect to be attacked as part of their job and may NOT exacerbate any situation by drawing a weapon first.”

- Hon Judge Douche, SCOTUS


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## Hush (Feb 1, 2009)

The shooting is less of a problem than the WHY this method of warrant service was chosen. Zero creativity. And it wasn't even their warrant, and now this dept is in yet another media jackpot.


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## RodneyFarva (Jan 18, 2007)

I am waiting to hear: "It was a no knock warrant, why didn't they just go in ? if the cops just went in they wouldn't have scared the kid, therefore he would have never reached for his weapon" or some bullshit to that effect.


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## RodneyFarva (Jan 18, 2007)

A Hennepin County judge approved the no-knock warrant that led to the police killing of Amir Locke during a raid in downtown Minneapolis last week in order to preserve potential evidence in a St. Paul homicide, according to court documents newly released Thursday.

The stealth entry to execute the search warrant was approved on Feb. 1, the day before Minneapolis SWAT officers stormed into the Bolero Flats apartment yelling "search warrant" without knocking. Locke, 22, was on a couch under a blanket, and stirred after an officer kicked the couch. He had a gun in his right hand and was shot within seconds.

Locke was not the subject of the search warrant, nor were the others who were in the apartment at the time: Locke's older brother and the brother's girlfriend.

The raid stems from the fatal shooting of 38-year-old Otis Elder during an apparent drug transaction on Jan. 10 on a St. Paul street. The latest court filings say Locke's cousin Mekhi Speed and others with him "were attempting to rob [Elder] of money and/or drugs."

Speed was charged Tuesday with second-degree murder on suspicion that he killed Elder. County prosecutors want to certify the 17-year-old Speed to be tried as an adult. He remains in custody ahead of a Feb. 15 court appearance.

Speed was living in a different unit of the Bolero Flats Apartment Homes at 1117 S. Marquette Av., in downtown Minneapolis but had access to the apartment raided by police.

Locke's death has revived intense debate about the use of no-knock search warrants, which critics say unnecessarily escalate police encounters. Thousands of protesters have since taken to the street — and some have walked out of school — to demand justice for Locke and the immediate resignations of Mayor Jacob Frey and Interim Police Chief Amelia Huffman.

The no-knock search warrant was approved by Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, and it explained in standard language that an unannounced entry was "necessary to prevent the loss, destruction, or removal of the objects of said search or to protect the safety of the searchers or the public."

Cahill presided over the widely-watched trial of Derek Chauvin, who last year was convicted of murdering George Floyd.

The application made by St. Paul police for the warrant cited numerous concerns about the potential danger that Speed and others with him posed to officers during a raid.

"These suspects have been actively involved in numerous crimes throughout the metro area since at least November 2021 to include robberies, firearm incidents, and fleeing police in a motor vehicle," the application read. "The suspects have been posting videos and photos on Instagram holding several different firearms to include a rifle, possibly the murder weapon."

Carrying out the raid before sunrise as well as without knocking is necessary, the application continued, because this "enables officers to execute the warrant more safely by allowing officers to make entry into the apartment without alerting the subjects inside. This will not only increase officer safety, but it will also decrease the risk for injuries to the suspects and other residents nearby."

Officers collected a wide range of items while inside the apartment including an empty gun case, numerous bags of marijuana, smartphones and clothing.

The sequence of events began last month when officers answered a 911 call in St. Paul's Hamline-Midway neighborhood and found Elder in the street wounded in the back outside a music recording studio in the 500 block of N. Prior Avenue.

As their investigation progressed last week, St. Paul police filed standard applications for search warrant affidavits for three Bolero Flats apartments. Detectives were forced to resubmit the requests after the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) insisted on a no-knock entry.

The MPD would not have agreed to execute the search in its jurisdiction otherwise, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.






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DocumentCloud







www.documentcloud.org


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## RodneyFarva (Jan 18, 2007)

Minneapolis, MN – Prosecutors announced on Wednesday that the officer who fatally shot 22-year-old Amir Locke while executing a “no knock” warrant in search of his younger cousin will not be criminally charged.

Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison released a joint statement on April 6, NBC News reported.

The officials said they had conducted a “thorough review” and determined “there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case.”

Freeman and Ellison said they could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman violated the state’s use-of-deadly force statute that authorizes officers to use such force, NBC News reported.

The prosecutors criticized the use of a “no knock” warrant but said they could find no criminal wrongdoing against Officer Hanneman or any of the other officers involved in the decision-making that led to the officer-involved shooting of Locke.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) completed its investigation into Locke’s fatal shooting in the end of March and sent the report to prosecutors.

Locke was killed on the seventh floor of the Bolero Flats apartment building at approximately 6:48 a.m. on Feb. 2, KSTP reported.

According to Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) Interim Chief Amelia Huffman, an eight-person MPD SWAT team was executing the warrant in connection with a St. Paul Police Department (SPPD) homicide investigation that involved Locke’s younger cousin.

Bodycam footage showed an officer unlocking the apartment door just before the officers “loudly and repeatedly announced their presence” and entered the apartment, the MPD said in a news release.

They continued announcing themselves as they made their way into the living room area towards a couch, where a figure could be seen moving beneath a white blanket.

One officer kicked the couch and ordered the suspect to get onto the ground.

That’s when the suspect – later identified as the 22-year-old Locke – pointed a handgun in another officers’ direction, resulting in the officer firing at him multiple times, according to the press release.

“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,” Chief Huffman said, according to Bring Me The News.

Police arrested Locke’s 17-year-old cousin, Mehki Camden Speed, for murder five days later.

Officials said officers were trying to serve a warrant on Speed when Locke pointed a gun at police and was killed.

Locke was not named in the search warrant, and Chief Huffman said investigators are still looking into “if or how Mr. Locke is connected” to the homicide case in St. Paul, Bring Me The News reported.

Charging documents indicated that police executed search warrants on three different apartments in Bolero Flats, searching for Speed, the night that Locke was fatally shot, WCCO reported.

Speed was charged with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the investigation of the Jan. 10 shooting death of Otis Elder in the 500-block of North Prior Avenue in St. Paul.

Police said Speed’s fingerprint had been found on a stolen silver Mercedes Benz that was reportedly used in multiple armed robberies last fall before it was dumped on a parking ramp in Minneapolis.

Officers tried to track down Speed through his probation officer and his mother before ultimately finding him in Winona, WCCO reported.

Speed tried to flee but was apprehended and arrested.

Police said he had a loaded gun in his jacket, and that it appeared to be the same jacket he was wearing in the surveillance video that showed him shooting Elder.

Protests erupted in Minneapolis after Locke was killed and activists demanded that charges be filed against Officer Hanneman.


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