Twenty-two-year-old Amir Locke was mendacity on a sofa when he bought shot lifeless by a SWAT staff throughout an early morning raid on a Minneapolis house on Wednesday.
Physique cam footage of the killing of the Black man raises new questions round no-knock warrants and enhance tensions within the metropolis the place George Floyd was killed.
Locke was killed on Wednesday in a police raid at round 6.48 a.m., in accordance with a press launch launched by Minneapolis Police.
The assertion mentioned police recovered a handgun from Locke, which was pointed in direction of the officers.
Amelia Huffman, the interim Minneapolis police chief, mentioned on Wednesday in a information convention that officers "loudly and repeatedly introduced 'police search warrant' earlier than crossing the brink into the house."
However Officers wore physique worn cameras and pictures was launched of the incident by the police power on Thursday. The footage tells a barely totally different story.
It exhibits police coming into the darkish house, shouting and capturing Locke who's mendacity on his couch with a gun in his hand. However it's not clear whether or not he was conscious that the officers had entered the house.
""Fingers, palms!" one officer is heard shouting within the video, whereas one other yells "Get on the bottom!".
One officer kicks the sofa and Locke's gun turns into seen, earlier than three photographs are fired at Locke. He was shot twice within the chest, as soon as in the correct wrist, in accordance with a medical report launched by the town.
In lower than 10 seconds, the whole encounter is over.
Huffman mentioned docs instantly supplied medical help, however the suspect died in hospital.
The Minnesota Bureau of Prison Apprehension (BCA) responded and is conducting an impartial investigation.
A report by the Related Press mentioned Nekima Levy Armstrong, a civil rights lawyer and group activist, mentioned Locke's household informed her Locke was a licensed gun proprietor with a hid carry allow, and that he did not stay within the house.
Armstrong, whom the mayor appointed final yr to co-chair a group security work group, additionally mentioned the police had not been on the lookout for Locke and he wasn't one of many three suspects named within the warrant to go looking the constructing.
Benjamin Crump, one of many attorneys performing for Locke's household, in a press release in contrast Locke's killing to the killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black lady who was fatally shot by Louisville police throughout a no-knock warrant at her house in 2020.
Newsweek has contacted Crump for extra remark.
Locke's killing is more likely to inflame tensions and attitudes in direction of police in a metropolis that was rocked by the dying of Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed by a police officer in Might 2020.
In June 2021, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 22 and half years for Floyd's homicide.
In addition to Floyd's killing, there have been a number of police killings of Black individuals within the metropolis in recent times.
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