No charges will be filed against the police officer who Amir Locke, a 22-year-old black man who was fatally shot during a no-knock warrant raid in Minneapolis in February.
Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced Wednesday they are declining to file criminal charges in Locke’s death.
Police the 22-year-old while executing a warrant in which he was not named, and that did not require police to knock and give any occupant a chance to open the door.
Body camera footage of the shooting shows the police officer quietly entering the apartment. As the officers barge in, Locke, who appeared to be sleeping, reveals a gun his family said he legally owned.
Police officer Mark Hanneman opened fire on Locke, and shot him three times.
‘After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case,’ Freeman said in a statement.
Under Minnesota law, police officers are authorized to use deadly force while in the line of duty to protect other officers or another from death or great bodily harm.
‘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 (Mark) Hanneman,’ Freeman wrote in the statement.
‘Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the dead of Amir Lock,’ Freeman added.
Locke was not a suspect in the investigation connected to the search warrants.
Last month, his 17-year-old cousin,
Speed was charged with two counts of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Otis Rodney Elder, 38, on January 10. Police had tracked Speed to the apartment building and executed search warrants on three apartments: the one he lived in with his mother, another apartment two doors down that belonged to an associated, and another belonging to his brother’s girlfriend.
The last apartment, where Locke was , was the only apartment police had a ‘no-knock’ warrant to enter.
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