Amir Locke shooting: Ben Crump, lawyers announce plans to file litigation against Mpls
'I’m not gonna give up:' Amir Locke's mother on prosecutors' decision not to charge officer
Karen Wells, mother of Amir Locke, is joined by Rev. Al Sharpton and attorney Ben Crump in New York to address prosecutors' decision to not charge the Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed the 22-year-old while serving a no-knock search warrant in February.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - On the one-year anniversary of the Minneapolis Police Department fatally shooting Amir Locke during the execution of a no-knock search warrant, civil rights attorneys Ben Crump, Antonio Romanucci, and Jeff Storms have announced their intent to file a lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis.
On Friday, the attorney and members of the Locke family plan to make the formal announcement during a press conference.
In April, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, with assistance from Attorney General Keith Ellison, has declined to bring charges against Mark Hanneman, the Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Amir Locke while serving a no-knock search warrant in February.
Later that April, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has released all investigative materials, including additional body-worn camera video, related to the Minneapolis police deadly shooting of Locke.
Shooting background
Just before 7 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, the Minneapolis SWAT team entered apartment 701 at the Bolero Flats in downtown Minneapolis to execute a no-knock search warrant in connection to a homicide that January in St. Paul.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) incident report, the SWAT team went to two apartments on the 14th floor before entering the unit on the seventh and "loudly" announcing their presence.
MPD says about nine seconds "into the entry," they encountered a man holding a handgun pointed "in the direction of officers." Mark Hanneman, a member of the eight-person SWAT team, fired at the man, striking him three times – twice in the chest and once on the right wrist, according to the incident report.
Controversy surrounded the fact that all available information indicates Locke was not named in the search warrant that led to his fatal encounter.
Following calls from the public as both news and rumor began to spread, graphic body camera video of the incident was released to the public around 7 p.m. on Feb. 3.
In the wake of the shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has since instituted a ban on no-knock search warrants for the Minneapolis Police Department.